Lost and Found
by prolixdreams
Summary: In one of their usual brotherly spats, Dean says something really stupid. An archangel friend makes a surprising return to teach them a lesson about staying on the same team by kidnapping Sam away to the center of the Labyrinth. Dean has 13 hours to get him back. [Slightly AU-Dean was able to tell Sam about Ezekiel, and Ezekiel was subsequently evicted.] [Destiel] [Sabriel]
1. Chapter 1

Dean reached forward and twisted the dial on the Impala's console, and the volume rose higher and higher. Sam let out a long huff and sucked his lips in between the rows of his teeth. His chin stuck out and his eyes started to roll – Dean refused to so much as glance over at the passenger seat, lest he acknowledge it, but it was all perfectly clear in his peripheral vision. The bitchface was forming.

"Yeah, that's real mature, Dean." Sam tried to project over the classic rock that vibrated the car's speakers.

"What's that?" Dean turned his head for a second and made a noncommittal gesture next to his left ear, injecting as much sarcasm into the motion as he could manage.

"I said…" In a move of utter defiance to the Rules of the Impala, Sam turned the volume back down. "I said real mature."

"I was protecting you. I couldn't… after everything, what was I supposed to do, let you die?"

"I don't know, just give me the choice. Give me some agency for once. Why do I feel like we never stop retreading the same ground? With my luck I feel like I'm going to grow old and die still believing some stupid lie you told me that you convinced yourself was for my own good."

"What would you have done, huh?" Dean's teeth pushed against one another, fingers white-knuckling the wheel. "If I had just left you there, with Death, what would you have done?"

Sam swallowed. "It doesn't matter."

Dean's arms bent in a turn, and the car obeyed, slowing around the bend before stopping by the glowing sign of the motel.

"Of course it matters. See this is why I have to look out for you, you'd go and get yourself…"

"Dean!" Sam stopped him. "What if that was what I wanted?"

"So now I'm stuck dragging around someone who doesn't even want to live, is that it? Life's not cushy enough for you, so you want to drop out, leave me behind to deal with the shit? Since when did we consider that an option, Sam?"

"I didn't say…"

"You did." Dean climbed out of the low seat and slammed the car door behind him. He endured a moment of regret and laid a hand on the roof as if to console the frame of the vehicle. "This has all been some big mistake to you, hasn't it? Joining back up with me, I mean. I remember what we saw in your memory, and now you basically tell me you'd die if somebody gave you the chance. Is that what family does?"

Sam took a long draw of the winter air and huffed it back out again. He watched the long footprints they made in the thin layer of dirty gray snow that dusted the parking lot.

He didn't want to stay at a motel, he wanted to get back to the bunker, where at least he'd had his own room – sleeping next to Dean was about the last thing he felt like doing tonight, but the job had gone on longer and harder than either of them had expected and they were too far out. Somehow, as it always would, everything had gotten twisted, gone wrong. Neither brother was really in any condition to drive, certainly not for the long hours it would take to get back.

They both clammed up; they were accustomed to keeping their business between them, keeping their silence from when they neared the door to the building until Sam pulled shut the yellowed door to their room.

Dean seethed. The smell of years of cigarette smoke came off the wallpaper and it felt sharp in his head. He went to hell for Sam and here Sam was basically telling him that if he'd been honest, he'd have just let Death come and take him away forever, just like that.

After everything they'd been through, after every sacrifice, every struggle, he would be alone in the world now but for that deceit. He'd never felt so furiously justified in his life, and couldn't help but imagine the pain and loss he might not have suffered if they had simply parted ways before, if he'd let Sam have what he _apparently _wanted all along, years ago.

"You know," Dean started, pulling his shirt over his head and making for the shower, "Maybe I'd be better off alone. Sometimes I wish…" He couldn't bring himself to say what he thought, so he finished, "I wish someone _would _just come and take you away." He closed the door behind him and started the water.

The room was quiet except for the sound of the water through the pipes in the wall. Sam perched gingerly on the bottom edge of the bed by the darkened window – Dean always slept closer to the door. Protecting him, Sam figured.

But it didn't come from the door, or the window. The rustle, so soft Sam could almost have thought he imagined it, came from behind him, accompanied by the smell of ozone like the air after lightning, and before he even had a chance to turn, the hand was on his shoulder.

"N…" He couldn't finish the word, he just grunted out the sound. "But you—" He broke away from the grab and stepped back carelessly, sending a light wooden dining chair toppling behind him.

Then the world melted and both of them were gone.

When the clatter of the chair penetrated the rush of the water, vibrated Dean's eardrums, and sent the alarm straight to his brain, he wasted no time. Life had taught him better. He did not step gingerly out of the tub, or dry off, or get dressed. He did not so much as grab a towel on his way past the shower curtain and out through the bathroom door.

"Sammy!" He called out as he exploded through the doorway.

The cold air of the room hit his skin and raised goosebumps along his arms and back.

Dean scanned the room.

Nothing moved.

He dripped on the stained carpet.

Sam was conspicuously absent, of course. Beyond that, there was no one and nothing out of the ordinary in the room that he could see. No matter how empty it seemed, however, Dean was hesitant to drop his guard. Visibility was hardly a barrier to entry for some of the dangerous things he could think of, even just off the top of his head.

He sidled toward his duffel, keeping his back to the wall.

"Sammy!?" He called out again, ears keen for a response that never came.

He didn't take his eyes off the room as he pulled on a pair of worn boxers with his left hand – leaving the right one free, just in case.

As no immediate threat presented itself, he retrieved a towel and, as he dried and dressed, visually pressed the room for more relevant details.

Sam's bag was still on the table – open. Sam's cell phone was next to it. Sam's shoes were less than a yard away, next to the bed, untied. As a final nail in the coffin of strangeness, the door was still locked and chained from the inside. Dean thought it safe to assume he hadn't stepped out of his own accord, or apparently even used the door at all. Something had gone amiss, and badly. That much was clear.

"Sammy!" He tried one last time, not sure why. More quietly, he asked the empty room, "Where'd you go?"

At the sound of tapping, he spun to face the door, but it wasn't coming from there. It was a low sound coming from the window, not a knocking really, not something that human hands or fingers would make. More like a hard rustle, or a flapping.

Dean crept closer to the sound. With no guile at all, he pulled back the heavy fabric curtain to find the source of the nose – an owl, pale against the dark night, lightly beating its wings and feet against the glass, clearly angling for entry. Dean sighed. Good idea or not, he didn't have much else to go on.

"Alright, alright, keep your pants on, Hedwig." Dean muttered as he unlatched the window lock and slid the panel to the side, allowing it entry. It came in with a burst of winter air that made Dean pull back in a wince. Light filled his vision and by the time he opened his eyes fully, his sight was full of sparkles – glitter exploding everywhere from where the owl should have been. He frowned.

When the shimmer-dust cleared, he wasn't faced with an owl at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean took in the sight of the former owl, now man (or at least man-shaped… whatever) and tried to size him up, and after a careful analysis, the conclusion he arrived at was that the intruder could only be the love child of a fabulous drag queen and a Spinal Tap reject.

Where the knee-high boots stopped, the tights began, gray and snug enough to leave little to the imagination, less like clothing, Dean considered, more like body paint.

He had to admit, though, the guy had some serious legs.

In the center of his chest, a white ruffled cravat spilled over the neckline of a vest covered in sequins, and it was all topped off by a similarly glittering black tailcoat with a collar that rose nearly halfway up his head before it finally folded over.

"Alright Whitesnake, what have you done with my brother?" Dean accused, deliberately twisting his look of confusion and skepticism into something with a harder edge.

"Dean-o… I'm disappointed. Don't you remember me?"

The face somehow twisted – the sharp features, covered in makeup, morphed, grew warmer, softer. The strange, steely eyes rounded, widened, turned to amber.

It couldn't be.

"Listen man, this is fucked up, you can't just…" Dean swallowed and shook his head slowly, just a little, a mask of disapproval hiding the tiniest of heartbreaks. "I'm not saying I liked the guy all that much but he saved my ass and he's dead and you're wearing his face and that's fucked up."

The man leaned forward a bit. "You liked him a little." The smirk was familiar.

Could that smirk really be faked with such heart-wrenching accuracy? Dean wondered.

"No." He answered.

"Get out of my…" Dean stopped. If he was in Dean's head, if he read his mind, that almost surely meant— "You were dead."

"I know!" Gabriel clapped two leather-gloved hands together, full to the brim with facetiousness. "Isn't that _just something else_? Good thing I'm not, isn't it? Good thing your brother kept that DVD of mine. I was counting on him, that Samuel, and wouldn't you just know he came through for me."

"You were counting on what." Dean tried to process

"Where is he, anyway?" Gabriel's eyes twinkled.

Dean's mouth shrank into a short, pursed line of irritation. "Alright, enough with the games, what did you do with him? Bring him back."

"Oh _now_ you want him around? Aren't we just the little dictator." Gabriel prodded Dean in the chest with a riding crop pulled seemingly from nowhere at all. "'Don't do the trials, Sam.' 'Let this angel possess you, Sam.' 'Don't let that angel possess you anymore, Sam.' 'Go away, Sam.'" He listed, breaking into song in a high pitched tone,_ "Cinderelly Cinderelly night and day, it's Cinderelly, make the fire, fix the breakfast, wash the dishes, do the mopping."_

"I was saving his life." Dean grunted each word, righteousness building in his chest, as if he was going to let some glittery archangel in high heels tell him what to do.

"Without his consent. We angels have reasons for these rules, you know. How old is he now? Nine? Ten? Oh wait, he's all grown up, isn't he? And so are you, so why don't you both act like it already?" His voice took on a note of impatience.

"Ok, alright, gotcha, let's all just get along, bingo, can I have him back now?"

"Didn't sound like you wanted him back a few minutes ago, Dean-o."

"Well I do, so pony up."

"I recall you wishing someone would take him away. I simply complied. Wish granted. Aren't I a sweetie? Anyway he's safe."

"That's great, now give him back."

"What if I told you he's safer with me than he is with you?" Gabriel asked, stepping gingerly past Dean, more at home in high heeled boots it seemed than most women Dean had met.

"Is that where he wants to be?"

"What if it was?" One side of Gabriel's mouth quirked up. "_Happy _and safe, let's say."

"I doubt that."

"What if he wanted to stay right where he is?"

"With you?"

"With me."

"Then I'd ask you to let him tell me himself." Rage started to tug at Dean's arms. He knew better than to go punching angels, but knowing didn't quell the urge much.

"If you can find him, I'll let you two have a nice talk about it."

"What do you mean find him?" Dean frowned.

Gabriel didn't need to answer, he simply unlatched the motel room door, flipped back the deadbolt, and swung it open. Dean had expected to see a scuzzy, faux-oriental carpet runner, dark greasy walls, dying lightbulbs a watermarked hallway ceiling, but it was all gone. What he saw instead was more than answer enough.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean blinked, eyes adjusting to the shock of white light pouring in from the roiling, cloud-covered sky. The ground tumbled down and away from the abrupt edge of the motel room doorway, forming the slope of a gray hill covered in hard, ashy soil and dry scrub. At the foot of the hill, a wall rose out of the dust, edged by twiggy bushes and squat trees that had seen better days. It went on seemingly forever in both directions, and beyond it, another wall, and another, and another, hundreds, thousands of interlocking walls forming a vast landscape of meandering stone as far as the eye could see.

The only thing to interrupt the vista came at the edge of the distant horizon - another hill, towering above it all, above the walls, and balancing atop its peak, a twisted castle, appearing almost to shimmer and bend in the strange light.

Dean adjusted, pulled the leather edges of his jacket closer around his shoulders, and took a faltering step into the cool breeze. It carried a smell like burning hay, and on the wind he thought he heard the peal of distant voices, but he couldn't be sure.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" All at once, Gabriel was standing in front of him, though Dean could not recall seeing him move. His voice was almost tender. Almost.

"What choice have I got?" He pursed his lips.

"If looks could kill, woof." Gabriel remarked on Dean's withering expression. "You could always just go back, you know. Turn around, pack up your things, get in your little car, be alone. Leave Sam safe with me. No more worrying, no more compromise, no more sacrifice."

"I can't tell if you're an idiot or an asshole," Dean mused, voice dropping to something almost like a growl, "So here's the litmus - do you really think I'm going to walk away from Sam? After all that?"

"What if I gave you a way to check up on him? Prove my honesty?" Gabriel reached behind his back and produced a clear orb, no bigger than a child's fist, like a bubble made of glass. "All you have to do is look into it, think of Sam, and you'll see him, wherever he is, whatever he's doing."

Gabriel's gloved hands did a neat trick, juggling it across his palms, dancing it across the backs of his hands, trading it from one set of knuckles to the other. It was more than a little mesmerizing.

Dean's teeth gritted, he swallowed and set Gabriel with a stubborn glare that said it all.

"You Winchesters don't take advice too well, do you? Very well." With an artistic flourish of his wrist, Gabriel produced an ornate iron clock to hang unnaturally from the dead wood of a dessicated tree. Something was off about it, though. The face looked crowded, and it took Dean a moment to realize why- "I'll give you thirteen hours." Gabriel said. "That should be more than enough for you lot. I'm not sure you've spent thirteen hours apart since that kid was born, after all."

"And what happens at thirteen'o'clock?"

"Don't worry, Dean-o. I won't do anything to hurt him." He let it hang in the air before adding, "I'll just wipe his memories. So he doesn't miss you, of course."

"How is that not hurting?"

"How is wishing someone would take him away not hurting?" Insult crept in to Gabriel's tone. "Doesn't matter. It's a puzzle, I promise you it _can _be solved. By someone like you? I can't guarantee."

"Someone like me?"

"You take an awful lot for granted, kid." Gabriel condescended. "Alright, I'm a softy, here's the tip: Don't assume the rules are the same here." By the end of his sentence, Gabriel was stone faced, deadly serious. "Thirteen hours." He said, stepping backward, leaving Dean blinking as his opacity declined with each step until, like the Cheshire cat, he was gone completely.

With him, Dean quickly realized, had gone the door to the motel room.

No use lollygagging, he thought, and started down the hill.

The wall was easily twice his height, made of solid cold stone, and unnervingly damp. Things grew in the cracks. Dean mused that Gabriel could really use a maintenance guy. The problem that he was encountering as he walked along the wall was that, much as he wanted to set about the work of getting to that castle, he couldn't even find the first door. His lips twisted into a tight, irritated shape.

The rules aren't the same, he remembered. What did that even mean? He wondered if Gabriel wasn't just trying to throw him off, make him doubt himself. But he hadn't expected an obstacle like this right off the bat. At a break in the sad shrubbery, he studied the stone blocks that made up the wall up close.

He pushed on them. Nothing happened.

He kicked them. Nothing happened.

He said, "Open, Sesame." Still nothing.

The door also failed to respond to, "Come on," or "This is such bullshit," or any number of exasperated sighs.

Just about fed up, he pulled a pistol from his waistband at the small of his back, aimed at one especially irritating rock and fired. The gun dissolved into nothing but sparkle-dust between his fingers, covering his hands in glitter and leaving a little sparkly splotch on the wall where he shot it.

He wiped his hands on his pants, coating his hips in the shiny particles.

"Hello, Dean."

He just about jumped out of his skin as he whipped around, pant legs glinting in the light.

The sneaky jerk looked up and down, eyes settling on Dean's hands, brows furrowing into a squint. "What's the matter with your hands?"

"I jerked off a unicorn." Dean deadpanned. "How's the borrowed mojo working out? I notice you got your digs back."

Cas elected to ignore the first thing, and instead focused the question that he understood better. "It's working fine. It's not as..." He searched for the word, wanted to express that the grace he had stolen wasn't as powerful as what he had lost, but the sentiment was a little too proud, so he settled on a different adjective. "Versatile, as I would prefer. Not that it matters here." He mumbled the end, trying to disguise a touch of annoyance and, perhaps, shame.

"You can't...?"

"I am not powerless, but my capacities seem to be deliberately limited. Most likely by whoever changed my clothes." He looked around, taking in what information was available. "It feels like the work of my brother. Whoever authored this must bear a similar sense of comedy."

Castiel's features twitched into an unusual shape. His mouth quirked into something that was almost a smirk, or a smile, but his eyes were dark, sad with memories. It was alien on his face, but Dean knew it well - he knew the face of a man missing someone, despite how much of a raging pain in the ass they once had been, or perhaps even because of it.

He wasn't sure how he felt about delivering the news, but it was mostly good. "Would you believe me if I said you hit the nail right on the head?"

Alarm played out on Cas' face. "Are you sure?" He pressed.

"I didn't believe it either, but..."

"It does feel like the construction of an archangel, and it would answer to why I was brought here."

"Wait, brought?"

"Quite suddenly."

"Damn." Dean laughed a little at the absurdity of it. "I almost hoped you'd come to, I don't know, rescue me and Sam or something."

Cas frowned. "I'm afraid not. I presume we are expected to traverse the maze? Where is Sam?"

"Gabriel's got him on lockdown, and I don't even know how to get into that thing."

He puzzled at Dean's face as if it were obvious, wondering if it was some joke he didn't quite understand.

"A... where, exactly?"

He walked not ten feet away. Dean followed him with his eyes until he was standing directly in front of a broad, arched set of double doors running the whole height of the wall that had absolutely not been there until just then.

"That wasn't there before." Dean excused, but Cas didn't seem to pay him any mind. With a touch of his hand to the door, it swung open like a gilded invitation and he passed through, leaving Dean scrambling after him.


	4. Chapter 4

Sam paced slowly, padding stocking-footed across the plush black carpet and back again. He wanted to complain, about something - he thought he ought to be cold, hungry, tired, damp, thirsty, something that could make him uncomfortable, angry, or indignant, but it was all taken care of, leaving him frustrated only at the lack of things to be frustrated about. With a touch, he had found himself no longer surrounded by the four run-down walls of a badly-kept midwestern motel room, but in something more like a suite.

In place of the balsa chair he had toppled, he had found himself stumbling instead into a wide padded armchair upholstered in a soft, silvery-gray leather. The table it faced was carved from a heavy ebony with curving legs and feet in the shape of claws clutching at the mirrored orbs that connected it with the floor.

The entire room was opulently appointed in muted shades of blacks and grays, and the effect was rich and peaceful. It was hard not to be soothed, though Sam did his level best to maintain a certain level of neurosis - certainly enough to avoid the abundant snacks set out seemingly with him in mind, and to ignore his thirst with regards to both the tall jug of cool clear water on one bedside table and the pitcher of dark wine occupying the other side. It was this very hospitality that made Sam the most suspicious. You didn't have to be a hunter to have read Hansel and Gretel as a child, or Alice in Wonderland, or the myth of Persephone and Hades. No such thing as a free lunch, indeed. Even if it really was who it looked like for a moment - and surely it couldn't have been - he's not sure he'd have trusted the offerings. Even the bookshelf, fully stocked and rising so high in the stone room it needed an old-fashioned wheeled ladder, seemed somehow threatening.

Could it have been him? Surely not. They had seen his wings, burned into the wood floor of the Elysian. Just remembering it made Sam's stomach turn. Their connection had always been on uneasy footing, but nevertheless, seeing him there, lifeless, sapped and left a shell, it felt like another failure, another person he had led down, fatally.

Sam alit on the arm of the chair that had caught his fall when he had tumbled through the world. He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to get his thoughts in order, to remind himself of reality, to not get caught up in a dream.

They had seen that... film, he had appeared in. And even though he would never have told Dean in a million years, Sam had held onto it. It wasn't a perversion, it was just all that was left of him, and for some reason that seemed just out of reach, it was hard to let go. Even more deep a secret: Sam had prayed, just in case, even knowing that they would go unheard. Silently he mouthed the name in the night when the nightmares snared his mind. He didn't know why, exactly, but the name that came to his lips when the fear and panic threatened to wipe him away like a bad stain was Gabriel.

He could swear it had been him, all forehead and wry smile and sly, golden eyes peering out from beneath thick blonde brows. The face had been there for hardly a fraction of a second, but the image was seared into Sam's mind just the same.

But that wasn't possible. It just wasn't.

He didn't even hear the gentle rustle behind him.

"You're not going crazy." Came the familiar voice, sharp and masculine but gentler than Sam could remember ever hearing it.

Sam tried to tamp down his relief. It could still be lies. He frowned and shook his head.

"Is there anything I can do to convince you?" He stepped forward, heels making dents in the deep carpet piles. Sam had never seen him so earnest.

"Where's Dean?"

"Ouch." Gabriel said. "Talk about your unhealthy codependency. Sheesh." The thin veneer of tenderness evaporated, and Sam found it almost a relief, more convincing than any argument.

"What did you with him?" Sam pushed, trying his best to trample his hope and stay focused.

"Relax, Samsquatch. He's fine. I just... granted his wish, that's all."

"His wish?"

"Yeah, you remember. Wishing someone would take you away and all. Just felt I was the man for the job."

"Get real, you know he didn't mean it." Sam defended.

"Oh no? Sounded pretty genuine."

"Listen, if you really are... who you seem to be," Sam stammered a little, almost unable to say the name aloud, "You must know you stepped in it here. Even if you stop me from going anywhere, Dean will find me. He's probably already on his way. You weren't exactly subtle, after all." Sam gestured to the outfit, about which 'flamboyant' would be an understatement.

"No, I wasn't. In fact I'm a little disappointed that you didn't figure me out already. Your'e usually so astute." He enunciated, never breaking eye contact as he popped the last 't'. "I'm not afraid of him coming looking for you, kiddo, I'm counting on it."

"So I'm what, a trap?"

"Mm, more like a lesson."

"I should have guessed." Sam's chin jutted. "What's your takeaway this time? Because your lessons have been so great for everybody in the past."

"Alright big guy, I know that's a sore spot. Heh. Spot-"

Sam was not amused.

"-But why do you think I set this up for you? Nice and cozy, lots of reading material, I bet you didn't even check out the bathroom. Did you check out the bathroom?"

"You think I'd rather be some pampered pet than be on the road with my _brother_?"

"What if he didn't want to be on the road with you? What if he hadn't recruited you on his little death march in the first place? Do you really think you wouldn't both be happier?" Gabriel mused.

Sam was quiet at first, reticent to admit that it wasn't the first time he would be considering questions like those. He only spoke when he had an answer he thought woud work: "The past doesn't matter. This is our life now. He wouldn't throw it away."

"I forgot how annoying you two were. Listen, just think about it. Oh, and your mule-headed brother has thirteen hours, so I should probably mention there's nothing weird about the food, otherwise you'll nobly starve yourself and we wouldn't want that."

"I'm supposed to believe that?"

"Kiddo, you barely eat as it is. There's nothing poetic or amusing about spiking your viniagrette, and if I wanted you unconscious it wouldn't exactly be a fancy trick to get you there."

"Speaking of tricks-"

"Ah ah ah." Gabriel scolded "You and I have time yet. Wouldn't it be more satisfying if you figured it out on your own? I'll give you a hint. Check the library. I know how you like your research." His eyes flashed gold, and the bent of his grin betrayed loud and clear just how pleased he was with himself.

Sam turned away to scan the ancient spines lined up on the shelves, and when he turned back, the room was empty and still, as if Gabriel had never been there at all.


	5. Chapter 5

"Reveal your secrets." Castiel demanded, his blue eyes narrowed. His trenchcoat was pooled around him as he crouched low to the chill stone tiles, and his hand was curled up tight in a fist.

The narrow-nosed creature gave the appearance of something like a naked rat, head dangling upside-down from behind a great metal shield. It chortled, wholly unthreatened. "I'd love to, wouldn't I?" He giggled. "But I don't have any, eh?"

"Don't look at me, big fella." Said his twin in the blue hat. "Maybe you'll want to ask them, they're the brains of the outfit." From behind the shield that obscured most of its strange, multi-limbed body, a gnarled hand pointed upwards - two more of the same ugly rodent heads pointed up out of the shields, though they had remained silent for the exhange thus far.

Dean sucked his teeth and wished for his gun to come back, but had no such luck. "C'mon Cas," he suggested, "Let's just get out of here, this is stupid."

"Good luck with that." Cackled the lower head in blue.

When Dean turned around, the path behind them had become nothing but solid wall.

"This piece of shit maze is _changing_?!" His voice rose in volume. "Bullshit. Bullshit!" He stormed up to the door guard, pointing an angry finger back at the wall that was once a path. "This is grade-A bullshit, you open that thing back up again or I'll crack your head open myself and then we'll see who's laughing."

"Dean..." Cas tried to give him pause. "I don't believe these... things... have the ability to fulfill your request."

"Oh yeah? I guess we're about to find out." He started to roll back his sleeve.

"Dean." Cas tried to reason with him. "You have been trapped within other puzzles authored by Gabriel. If he wishes for us to complete some riddle, do you believe that he will permit the use of force to avoid it?"

Dean gritted his teeth. "Alright, fine, what's the trick?" He grunted, tone absolutely smothered in heavy resentment.

"Finally, light dawns over marblehead." One of the upper heads mocked shrilly through an accent Dean couldn't place.

"One of these doors will lead you to the castle you need..." Began the other head.

"And the other one will lead you to a nasty end indeed." Completed the first.

Cas questioned, "Must we guess blindly?"

"No no no no no no." Said the head in red. "You can ask one of us one yes or no question."

The other elaborated, "But you should know, one of us always answers true..."

"And the other can only say a falsehood. That's him." The hand protruding unnaturally from the door on the left jerked its thumb to the door on the right.

"It isn't!" The door on the right protested. "Liar!"

"See how well he lies?"

"Oi, cut that out, you know you're the lying one."

"I know this one." Dean interrupted their bickering.

"Hey, how about that, the brute thinks he knows something." Said the door on the right.

"Dean?" Cas' head tilted. "Are you certain? We only have one question." Worry bit at him. He was sure he could discover the answer, given sufficient time, but time was of the essence, and even after the time he spent as a human, he wasn't accustomed to being unable to use time to his own advantage, even a little.

"Yeah, Sammy used to have this book of riddles when we were kids, drove me crazy the way he'd pester me with it." Dean let a small laugh go free at the memory. "I think I remember one like this."

"If you're sure." Cas nodded, face settling into an expression of blank observation of the proceedings. He tried to soothe his mind to match it - something that had come so effortlessly once upon a time, but now presented more difficulty. Despite being possessed of grace once again, having been completely human seemed that it might have some more lasting effects.

Dean glanced from one upper head to the other, swallowing nervously. He had to dig pretty deep to remember Sammy reading to him from that stupid book of puzzles, and to remember what he'd sanctimoniously read off as the answer. He wondered if Gabriel was crazy enough to put a real deathtrap in this thing, but felt assured that either way, it would be the end of the maze for him if he guessed wrong.

He picked the head to the left and took a deep breath."

"What would you say," he asked, "If were to ask you if this door leads to the castle, and not my death?"

The head's bushy eyebrows came down in a furrowed look. It ducked down behind the shield, seemingly conferring with the idental head below. It returned.

"Yes." It nodded, once again full of confidence.

"Great. Come on, let's go." He beckoned Cas.

"You choose this door then? How can be so sure that I'm telling the truth?" The head wondered.

Dean's lip twitched upward. He was just about to tell the ugly thing that it was none of its business, but then he glanced at Cas. He sought eye contact. He was about to show off, and for some reason, he knew he wanted Cas to get the full effect.

"If you're the good guy," Dean explained, unable to keep just a little haughtiness out of his speech, "you'd tell me the truth, so if I asked if the door led to the castle, you'd honestly say yes, so the answer to how you'd answer would be yes, and I'd know this door was the right one.

"If you were the liar guy, you'd have to lie about your lie - the answer to if the door leads to the castle would be yes, so you'd say no about the door, but that's not what I asked, is it? I asked what you'd say. You'd have to lie about what you'd say, so you'd _still _have to say yes. You'd have to lie about your lie. It doesn't matter who you are - you just told me the truth about the door. You had to."

Cas' mouth slowly edged into something almost like a smile. His chest felt warm, and the warmth sank into his stomach in a way that made him tense, but not entirely in a bad way, it was more like a flutter than a pain. A glimmer of pride and excitement flashed beneath the surface, though he couldn't quite pinpoint the reason, given that he hadn't, himself, been the one to give the answer.

Obediently, its cockiness silenced, the door swung open. Dean thought warmly of Sam as he stepped through, and sent out a silent thank you to the universe for giving him such a nerdy brother - it just so happened that that thanks was just close enough to prayer for Cas to hear it. Cas wondered if Gabriel heard it too, but given Dean's reaction to mind-reading in the past, he decided it was most prudent to say nothing of it.

Dean took two steps past the threshhold when the floor opened up beneath him, and he fell.

Castiel ran to the precipice. It was dark down in the hole, but he could see Dean suspended, by what he couldn't quite tell, seemingly in midair.

"Are you hurt?" He called down, panic rising in his tone.

"What?" I can't hear you." Dean called back, only aware that the gruff voice was asking something of him. He wasn't sure himself why he had stopped falling, but it felt as if someone had caught him - someone, or perhaps many someones. As his eyes adjusted to the light, his whole body tensed. He tried to thrash in surprise, but he was bound too tight to go far. Many someones indeed - the feeling of tight wraps around his legs and forearms were in fact clammy, disembodied human hands poking out of the wet, black walls.

Castiel shouted something again, but Dean still couldn't make out the words.

"So now Gabriel's got you guys feeling me up? Could this get any creepier?" Dean's voice was dark with frustration.

What Dean did not expect was for three or four of the nasty, thick, bluish-gray hands that lined the wall in enormous numbers to wrap together to form a crude face.

"Are you alright?" The face asked.

"We're only here to help." Said another face, appearing before him in the darkness.

"Yeah, well you've got a funny idea of helping." Dean shot back.

"Oh." Said a third face. "I guess he doesn't want our help."

All at once, the pressure was gone and he was falling again, provoking a sharp yelp from Dean and another set of hands to grab him.

A new face said, "I thought you didn't want any help? You don't want to go back up?"

Dean's face screwed up and his hands balled. He would not be taunted. Besides, who said this wasn't another of Gabriel's stupid tricks? Going back up was too easy, he thought, too obvious, and the obvious choice felt unlikely to be the right one, especially given that 'hint' from earlier. "I don't." He said, regretting the words instinctively when the damp fingers unwrapped from his limbs and allowed him to carry on descending.

Castiel saw him shrink, then stop, then sink completely away into the darkness. His throat closed. He steeled himself, and with nary a second thought, jumped in after. The hands didn't touch Cas at all.


	6. Chapter 6

_"...Or we're going to dunk you in holy oil, and deep fry ourselves an archangel." Dean threatens, now that he's safe on the other side of the circle of flames. He has only one track, one care, his head is a drum, _Cas, Cas, Cas, _it beats, worry and fear that it cannot or will not be done piercing him like needles of ice running through his veins. He would say anything to make this shallow, selfish creature just _bring back Cas_, and in this moment, he has run completely out of fucks to give about who knows it. _

_ Gabriel takes note, but it's largely old news to him. His eyes, flickering reflections of his temporary prison, dart away to something far more interesting. Sam's face, usually so steadfastly supportive of the elder Winchester, is now a portrait of conflict, and that is what draws Gabriel's gaze - the way Sam struggles to maintain the facade of cold anger, the way his brow falters and his lip tenses just a bit. Holes in the mask. He pushes a little, feels around the edges of Sam's mind. Something keeps him from going too far, but he wants to know what Sam is hiding. He makes sure to give Dean a sneer before he complies. _

_ "Cas, you okay?" He is there. He is whole. Relief comes like an opened floodgate and the rolling boil of his adrenaline lowers to a simmer. _

_ "I'm fine." Cas reassures. Dean's emotions are so heavy, twisting out from his body like stretching tentacles of anxiety slowly settling, and Cas does not try to read his mind, but it is like trying to ignore someone who is shouting at him. "Hello, Gabriel." _

_ "Hey bro." Gabriel tosses out. "How's the search for 'daddy' going? Let me guess. Awful." Injury spills over his edges into his words, eons of resentment and avoidance sounding out as clear as the trumpets he once blew. Castiel's foolishness is dredging up old hurts like the rain muddying a lake. _

_ "Okay, we're out of here. Come on, Sam." Dean asserts. _

_When Sam's feet stay rooted to the floor a little longer, something inside Gabriel's heart jumps. He meets Sam's eyes with his own, and for a moment, there is heat that comes from somewhere other than the fire that surrounds him and Sam can't look away. His eyes flick to Dean, then back again. He turns away completely. _

_ Dean bloviates, Gabriel only hears it at the edges. He will take it to heart later, now is not the time. Now is the time to absorb the details - Sam's lip curling under, Sam's fingers pressing into the palms of his hand, Sam's refusal to meet the eyes of anyone present throughout Dean's little sermon, and most telling of all, Sam's total silence. Gabriel thinks Sam must know what it's like,_ not_ standing up to your family._

_ When Castiel glances back, Gabriel is struck by the blast-wave of his protectiveness, a message that transcends modern language but could be translated as something along the lines of 'don't touch my Winchesters.' He mistakes Gabriel's attentions for something more predatory, perhaps. _

_ Gabriel will have to be cautious if he wanted Sam's attention. Only dreams would provide that kind of security. Dreams it is then, he thinks._

* * *

Every time Sam tipped the decanter to fill his glass with the dark wine, he found it full to brimming again when he set it back upright. It made measuring his consumption difficult, and before long, it went to his head, and focusing on the words was hard enough, let alone making out the meanings from page after page of Latin. He pushed away from the table and poured the remainder of his glass into the black soil of a leafy plant occupying one corner so that he could make the switch to water.

He took a long, cool drought. The condensation dampened his fingers and he felt the welcome temperature drop all the way down through his chest. It was too quiet. Memories swirled and eddied at his feet. He removed his socks.

For some reason, the moments that bubbled up were soulless ones - enough wine or whiskey did that to him, and it made it hard to enjoy a good buzz anymore. When he was sober, his recollections of soullessness were like watching a film of someone who looked like him and sounded like him, but when his barriers came down, he could inhabit that person again, remember what it felt like to be him.

He remembered a life inside a bell jar, feelings and needs banging about outside it, nothing but stillness and strength and self within. He didn't need to sleep, so he didn't need to live with either the nightmares, or the good dreams, whichever was worse he wasn't sure. He knew well the distant thrum of relief when he first thought of the archangel and felt... nothing at all. He didn't _care _what happened to the notches in his bedpost after they'd been thoroughly notched, and damn Dean's prodding jokes about their 'inevitable' fates.

Then again, Dean had been right, he supposed, if even an archangel couldn't avoid the curse.

He had felt invincible then. In soullessness, there had been a hard-won release from the constantly looming shadow of mourning that had complicated his already difficult days and haunted his already tumultuous nights before the face-off with Lucifer. He fought against a return to normalcy, and had plenty of reasons to throw them all off and keep his secrets hidden - his new-found strength and callous ability to get things done, his fear of what the traumas of the cage would do to his living form, Dean and Bobby and all and sundry knew those reasons.

The fear that none of them knew then, and never learned, was of what weight that soul might bring with it with regard to the lost archangel. They had little to no love for Gabriel, only softening after he was gone, and how genuine that was, Sam didn't know. Of course, he doubted this predicament would change anyone's minds. He told them much of what his visions of Lucifer showed him when the wall came down. He didn't tell them how many times he watched that awful moment like a hologram playing out on repeat, Lucifer turning Gabriel's blade around and push it through, cradling his head before finishing him, burning his wings into the wood.

"How did I do, Sammy?" Lucifer would ask slowly, one word at a time. "Scale of one to ten, come on. Hold up a card or something."

The memory of the vision was faint, but even the faintest impression of that moment had the ability to turn Sam's wine-filled stomach. He shuffled heavily to the suite's bathroom and let his legs drop him until his knees were pressed against the cool white marble. He studied the gold flecks in the floor. His breath came heavy and his guts knotted, saliva filled his mouth, and then, like magic, the tension eased, and it went no further than that. Some power of the illusion? Sam wondered blearily. There was no way to tell for sure.

Beside him, the enormous tub was full of steaming water that smelled lightly of ginger and salts. He shed the armor of his sweatshirt and dangled one arm over the edge, up to the elbow, and swirled the water around.

Did Gabriel really think he was going to take a bath? Sam laughed a little. He mused over the dead language of the books, his mind turning the riddles around like some kind of alien rubix cube. It made him think of Harry Potter, all this talk of talismans and pieces of grace and such. He frowned, wondering if J.K. Rowling knew more than she let on. He couldn't seem to concentrate on one thing at a time.

It wasn't enough, though. There was a missing piece. The book seemed quite detailed about the ritual of the talisman: it would create an anchor in he case of death, but reduce an angel's power of grace by as much as half, but exactly how much he'd have to give, he could never know until the ritual was complete. It took what it wanted - and there were no refunds, whether or not the angel's resurrection was ever successful. A frightening prospect, Sam thought. When had Gabriel done it? How powerful had he been before?

Anger pooled in Sam's chest. Gabriel had left him alone, hopeless and hurting, no one to talk to, no one who would understand - it's not like they were ever together, not really, not outside of those strange dreams.

It made Sam had felt even more pathetic for taking it as hard as he did, and more isolated. Telling Dean was out of the question, and if he couldn't tell Dean, he couldn't tell anyone. His chin jutted. Why couldn't Gabriel have just told him if there was some kind of plan B?

When they met at the Elysian, Sam had searched Gabriel's face and found it guarded. There was never any sign. Sam never stopped doubting if it was really Gabriel that waved away the nightmares like so much bad-smelling smoke and stayed there with him in those floating worlds of night, or if it was just his own invention. Was the whole thing all in his head in the end after all?

The fingers on his right arm grew pruny from dangling into the bathwater. He shook his arm off and slapped at the surface, burning off some of his directionless irritation.

The library yielded answers so easily on how to create the talisman, but creating it was only half of the spell. An anchor wasn't enough - someone had to activate it.

* * *

"The oubliette?" Gabriel asked no one. He had become accustomed to talking to himself. "Interesting."

The orb before him was an enormous version of the crystal he had offered Dean hours ago, perched within a giant claw reminiscent of the ones that held up the table in the room he'd made for Sam. Castiel and Dean's forms were pictured inside, barely visible in the darkness of the oubliette into which they'd fallen. It was farther than he'd expected Dean to make it before doing something foolish and getting behind. Gabriel reflected on his own generosity, letting Dean have Cassie as his voice of reason - something the older Winchester sorely needed, in Gabriel's opinion.

He was doing a bit too well, however. Gabriel thought of Sam. Leaving him alone to sort things out for himself was the hardest thing he'd done in a hundred years, and that included coming back from the dead. He wanted to explain, but too much, too soon, he knew what the human constitution was like, even for someone like Sam. He would be angry, and things were still a little delicate, a little unfinished. The whole process could go up in smoke if he wasn't careful.

No, he needed more time. He wasn't going to let Dean's unexpected progress cut him short. There were layers to this operation, and he needed to stay in control.

With a snap of his fingers, he found himself precisely where he needed to be: far beneath the earth in a dusty room whose door was left open just a crack, rendering the sigils that coated the walls inside and out essentially worthless.

It was any wonder those Winchesters managed to stay alive this long, with that sort of carelessness.

"And who might you be?" Rasped the room's only occupant, full of an indignation that melted away immediately the moment Gabriel turned around to face him.

"Oh." Crowley said. "Bugger."


	7. Chapter 7

"Why did you do that?" Dean asked into the darkness

"You fell down." Cas returned simply, as though it was all the explanation he needed to give.

"You couldn't have, I don't know, helped me get back up?"

"I had no means to retrieve you."

"So you jumped into the hole after me."

Cas didn't answer. His eyes caught the dim light from the hole overhead like a cat's, reflecting back bright blue guilt, but not an ounce of remorse. It could have been a bottomless pit and he would strive for nothing but to catch up to Dean and fall with him. It could have been swords and flames and he wouldn't regret jumping in after.

As it was, it was just hard stone and no light, and a sour smell that hung thick in the air, like mildew and gasoline. They'd had worse.

"Your elf-eyes seeing any way outta here?" Dean asked.

"My eyes are…" Cas realized belatedly that it was another one of those strange things Dean would say seemingly in plain English but having meaning Cas could not find a way to parse. He felt at times as if Dean spoke in code. "I don't see an exit."

Dean felt the stab of his mistake deep in his stomach.

"Dean."

"Yeah?" The word was infused with resignation and guilt. He'd chosen wrong, somehow. It was the only explanation. Once again, something he'd touched turned to failure and ruin and now he'd dragged Cas into his garbage too.

"I'm sorry if I did the wrong thing." Cas' apology only made Dean feel worse, like he'd struck a puppy.

"Nah. You know I'd have jumped in if it was you." Somehow the dark seemed like a safe place to be honest. No one had to see his face. It felt like something that could be dismissed, forgotten. Dean went on: "The place could have been on fire and you know I'd have just…" He made a falling gesture with his hand. Cas couldn't see it, but he understood the gist. He could hear the tired smirk, like a smile over the phone.

"You think you owe me." Cas said.

"Dude, I don't know, maybe, but that's not why, how many times do I have to tell you, it's like you won't let yourself think I just…" He stopped. The darkness was safe, but it wasn't _that _safe.

Drops of water fell somewhere, soft _plinks _bouncing off the rocks.

"You just what?" Cas asked. His vessel's heartrate had increased and he felt it flutter against his ribs. He had thought that these sensations of humanity would fade when he had grace again, his own or otherwise, but they didn't. Before the trickery of Metatron, he had kept himself back from the boundaries of his vessel and its wants, finding foolish the angels that indulged in the shallow tempests of their human bodies, but then Jimmy Novak was gone and they were _his _tempests to deflect, and then he was all human, and they were unavoidable, all-encompassing. Grace or not, they pursued him still.

"We're family." Dean swallowed his original thought.

"It wasn't wrong." Cas said, and Dean immediately knew what he meant. Cas still thought Dean had picked the right door.

"Then how are we sitting in a moldy cave instead of solving—" Dean stopped and palmed his forehead with a light _smack_. "I'm doing it again. I'm taking it for granted."

"I don't understand."

"Gabriel said the rules are different here. So there's gotta be something." Dean stood, bending at the shoulders beneath the low, dripping ceiling. He winced as he touched the slimy junk that lined the walls, random objects littering the dungeon that seemed to have been there forever and a day.

Something glinted in the pile of rubbish and he reached for it. He pulled it out of the mud with a sucking sound and brushed it off – it was globelike, gold and round, with a protrusion on one end and a short spike sticking out, like a doorknob with a knife on one end.

A doorknob.

"Cas, I have an idea, but it's really, really stupid. I need you to promise not to say anything in five seconds when it doesn't work, because it probably won't."

"I promise." Cas felt it was a silly request, all blustery human ego, but gave what seemed to be the correct response.

Dean tapped at the stone wall around where he had found the knob. His nail hit stone, stone, stone, stone, dirt, stone… he went back a spot and pressed in with his finger, finding a soft spot where two stones were joined. He lined up the spike on the back end of the knob with the soft spot and gave it a hard shove.

It sank into the wall.

Nothing happened.

As a last ditch effort, he turned it.

Nothing happened, until it did.

A thin-lined rectangle of light traced itself into the rock around the knob.

"Humans." Castiel whispered under his breath. "Every time I think I've seen it all…" He trailed off.

"Shall we get the hell out of here?" Dean invited, putting on airs of formality.

"Indeed."

The stone now-door pushed easily outward into a dirty passageway beneath the earth, just tall enough to pass more comfortably through. Its walls were slanted inward and lined with enormous faces carved into the rock. Dean wasn't even surprised when they turned a corner and the faces started to move.

"Do not pass!" Boomed one voice.

"This path heralds your doom!" Rumbled the next.

"The way you walk will lead you to your demise!"

"Oh for the love of…" Dean grumbled. "I'm wising up to your tricks, Gabriel!" He shouted ahead into the ceiling. "Do you really think some Easter Island wannabes are going to slow me down?"

One of the faces' giant rocky lip tilted outward in something that tried to resemble a pout. "Was that really necessary?" The face asked.

"It was a little hurtful!" Shouted the first face, in much the same tone.

"Not very sensitive!" Assented another, its granite brows tilting out with betrayal.

"Please excuse him." Cas addressed the faces with concern. "He is quite distraught. I don't think you will find him easily dissuaded. It is no failing of yours."

"What are you doing? Nevermind. Don't bother." Dean said. "Come on let's keep going."

"At least one of them is polite." Commented the face at the corner as they disappeared through a doorway.

Past their feet rolled a fist-sized glass ball. It did not escape Dean's attention.

"Motherfucker." He swore.

"Now now," Said a thin, high voice from a beak in the shadow beneath a tall hat, "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"Cut the crap."

It stood, long, human legs appearing from nowhere, and without warning the creature itself was discarded over the top of Gabriel's head.

"Cassie." He said by way of greeting.

"Gabriel." Cas growled. "I demand answers. How did you survive Lucifer's assault? What is the meaning of this?" He gestured around him. "Don't you know there are more important things now than playing games?"

"Tell that to your little pet." Gabriel looked at Dean. "He's the one who wished his brother away. Why is the guy who grants the wishes always made out to be the villain? No gratitude around here, I swear. And you." He turned back to Cas. "I guess being bossy and shortsighted is just a human thing you picked up then?"

Cas' eyes dropped to the floor. Even in the face of tricks and manipulations and betrayal, it was hard for him to forget the natural order of things, nearly impossible not to feel a little chastened.

"Are you enjoying yourself, Dean?" Gabriel asked, leaning in, heels making him almost as tall as Dean.

"Yeah. It's great. I'm having a great time." Dean defied.

"Perfect. Then you won't mind if we move things along a little." He snapped two fingers on a leather-gloved hand and another clock appeared against the curved wall. He twirled a finger and let an extra hour fly by in just a moment.

"And how _exactly_ is that fair?" Dean squared his shoulders and jabbed a point at the clock.

Gabriel's eyebrows rose dramatically. "Who told you life was fair? You ought to give them a sock in the nose, buddy, 'cause I think somebody told you a big fat lie."

"You can't just do that!" Dean protested.

"I can, and I will, and I'll even do you one better." Gabriel taunted. With a twist of his hand, another clear, shimmering ball appeared at his fingertips, and he gave it a big overhand throw down the rounded hallway.

Cas and Dean turned their heads to follow it, heard it bounce, and turned back. Gabriel was gone.

A hissing, rattling noise grew in the tunnel behind them, too far to see. Something glinted like twisting blades and before long they could see the massive plate covered in sharp things, it took up the entire hallway from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. It crackled and bumped through the tunnel.

"Uh, Cas?"

"Yes, Dean?"

"I think we should run." Dean suggested.

"I am inclined to agree."

Cas felt the squeeze of Dean's fingers around his own. Before he had time to process his surprise, Dean was pulling him down through the tunnel and onward, into the darkness.


	8. Chapter 8

Dean led the way up the ladder. At the top, there was something like a domed manhole cover. Fortunately it wasn't as heavy as it looked from below and he had little trouble giving it a hard shove out of the way. He pulled himself up and out of what, from the outside, looked to be a large clay pot. What puzzled him as he paused to let Cas catch up was that the pot was sitting atop a small dais that kept it up off the ground on four squat little table legs - neither the pot nor the surface of the dais appeared to touch or connect to the ground at all. He could see straight through beneath the platform. It was a little bit unnerving.

Despite that, the light felt good on his face, warm and dry compared to the dankness of the tunnels they'd come from, and he enjoyed a still moment after the run from whatever that thing had been. He looked around, finding that the walls were no longer stone and brick but hedges, a maze that would be just as at home in a the country garden of some aristocrat. It spoke to Dean's ability to be taught that he didn't bother attempting to hurt or destroy the shrubbery. Cas pulled himself out over the lip of the pot.

In one corner of the courtyard where they came up, there was what looked like a strange old man with voluminous white facial hair and an odd goose sitting low upon his head as if it were a hat. Both man and goose were asleep. Dean elected not to wake them.

"Which way?" Cas asked.

"Dude, do I look like I'm from around here?"

"I suppose I was simply going to defer to your judgment regardless."

"Because my judgment has been great thus far." Dean scoffed. "Wait. Are you... going along with this nosense? Are you making me lead because of Gabriel? Did he say something to you, you know, that I couldn't hear?"

"Well." Cas hesitated, realizing that he was once again in the difficult position where the truth was not something Dean wanted to hear. These situations were some of the most difficult to navigate with Dean in particular, and he did not feel that his track record in handling them was anything to be proud of.

Cas said, "In the past, playing Gabriel's game has been the fastest way through it, correct?"

"I guess." Dean looked around, squinting in the direction of the light. He considered where it had come from when he'd entered the maze, but where it was now didn't seem to give him much information about how much time remained.

"By all appearances, the puzzle was intended for you. I worry that excessive interference on my part could alter the result."

"You don't want to piss off Gabriel." Dean summed up.

"Indeed."

"Yeah, whatever. That way, then." Dean more or less chose a direction at random, and took off walking.

"Actually," Cas mused aloud, "I am not sure what my role is in this scenario."

"I couldn't tell you what Gabe wants with you, but I gotta admit, whatever the reason is, I'm glad you're here." He didn't make eye contact, and stayed one step ahead of Cas. "Cards on the table, if I'm gonna be stuck rescuing Princess Sammy from the tower, I can't think of anyone I'd rather have on hand."

A soft warmth started in Cas' chest and spread outward to his legs, his arms, and his face, pushing his features into a true, rare smile. "I suspect this will fall into the category of things you do not wish to discuss, but you are the only one to have expressed that sentiment to me.

"What, no one? Thousands of years and you're saying nobody ever said they wanted you around?" He actually turned around for a moment as he walked, showing Cas a disbelieving expression.

Cas turned his eyes to the sandy ground beneath him. "You called me a hammer once. I think that was my value - those who prayed to me, or gave me orders, they wanted only the impact. Objectives were never in short supply. But even when I am in no condition to be of much help, you seem to desire my company regardless. That is the sentiment that I refer to as unique."

They had reached a dead end. Dean stopped and spun on his heels. "OK. Here's how this is going to go. I'm going to say something, then we're going to turn around and keep walking, and we're not going to talk about it, at all. We cool?"

Cas searched Dean's face. He nodded mutely.

"I don't need an angel." Dean reached his arm out lightly, tentatively, but then surprised Cas by the force with which he brought it down, clapping his hand onto Cas' shoulder. "I need you."

Many things sprung to Cas' mind to say, but he had agreed to the terms of not prolonging the conversation, so he simply made a mental note of them and stepped forward to continue on.

Dean made little notches in the dirt as he pushed off to walk back in the other direction. He coughed, as if to dissipate any cheesiness or, heaven forbid, raw emotions that might linger from their conversation among the hedges. Fortunately for him, a distraction made itself evident in short order after the next corner they rounded - the silence was shattered.

_"YOU BLOODY RATS GET YOUR DISGUSTING CLAWS OFF OF ME!" _Bellowed a familiar, gravelly tone from the other side of the hedge. _"WHEN I GET OUT OF HERE I'M GOING TO PERSONALLY REMOVE YOUR LIMBS ONE BY ONE AND FEED THEM TO MY DOGS." _

"Is that..."

"Crowley." Dean finished.

They hurried along the topiary until they came to a break in the leaves. Dean backed up against one side of shrubs and gestured for Cas to take the other side. He peered tactically around the edge.

What he saw on the other side had him both distressed and, all at once, struggling not to laugh. Crowley was tied up like a trussed turkey, surrounded by squat little creatures covered in armor and wielding long sticks with piranha-mouths on the far ends. They prodded him mercilessly, little mouths nipping at Crowley's feet and sides.

Crowley looked up. From his angle, Dean was nowhere to be seen, but he caught sight of Cas.

"Castiel!" He shouted over the din of the creatures' chatter. "Little help here?!"

As Crowley shouted, Cas felt something strange - through his shoulders and hands, power returned to him. He wasn't sure what manner of trickery it was, but he decided it would not be present if it had no use - he reached out a hand and, by will alone, sent one of the armored things flying headlong into another. One by one this turn of events confused them all, and within a few moments they could be seen sprinting off through another doorway in the hedge.

As soon as he was finished, Cas felt the sensation fade, as though Crowley himself had simply given him just enough juice to accomplish the task at hand.

Dean glanced at Cas, but didn't think too hard about it before taking advantage of the opportunity and jumping around the corner.

"Ah, we've got the Squirrel as well." Crowley was fairly composed for someone who was bound and hanging upside down. "But what about Moose?"

"What, you mean to tell me you don't know?" Dean asked.

"I'm not sure what I know at the moment."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well for one thing, I thought I knew that the archangel Gabriel was long deceased, but things appear to have changed since I last checked. Oh, and _WOULD YOU CARE TO LET ME DOWN?" _He crescendoed.

"Are we on the same team or something?" Dean asked.

"For the time being, it would appear that way. I'm not sure what our recently resurrected friend intends to do with me, but something tells me that whatever it is, neither of us will have much say in the matter, so you might as well let me down for the time being, yes?" Crowley spoke as if he was attempting to explain physics to a kindergartner.

"What are you gonna do if we let you down?"

"Same as you. Try to get out of here. At least I assume that's what you two are up to."

"Not quite." Dean said. "Gabriel's got Sam locked up. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to peace outta here, but we have to get Sam first."

"Very well." Crowley said. "I can't imagine the exit is marked with little glowing signs, so I don't suppose I have a lot of options outside of going along on your little trek to see the wizard or what have you."

Dean looked around for Cas. During the little negotiation with Crowley, Cas had wandered to the other side of the clearing where two wooden doors sat in a stone wall, each one one side of a corner. Shades of the puzzle from earlier. Something dropped in Dean's stomach. He wasn't interested in any more dungeons. As he bent to untie the rope that was stretched over a tree limb to hold Crowley in the air, he never took his eyes off Cas and the doors.

He let Crowley fall.

"Don't bother to let me down gently or anything." Crowley sneered as he shook free of the ropes. He pulled himself to his feet and brushed himself off like a preening bird.

Dean was already examining the two doors - each bore a bronzed metal face that held a knocker, one's ring went, quite literally, in one ear and out the other. The second door held its heavy metal circle its mouth.

"They talk." Crowley said briefly. "I heard them talking earlier. Or at least that one does." He pointed to the one whose ring went through its ears.

"What!?" The bronze moved like flesh and the face spoke. Dean's well of surprise, however, had just about run dry.

"Which way to the castle?" Dean grunted.

"What?!" It said again.

Dean groaned and approached the other door. "You. Which door to the castle?" His patience was not in great supply either.

"Mff dnnn mhh."

Cas approached it and held the ring, allowing the door to let go with its mouth.

The door tried again. "How should we know? We're on the same side as you!" He said with a dry laugh at his own joke.

"Alright, what do I do? What's the trick?"

"Choose your door," said the face of the door, and "And knock."

"What?!" said the other door.

Dean glanced back and forth, doing a sort of mental eenie-meenie-miney-moe.

"What if I want to choose you?"

"Why don't you choose him?" The face asked, eyeing the ring Cas held with obvious unease.

"Oh no. I'm here, doing whatever that asshat Gabriel has decided is my job, don't go shirking yours."

"I don't- mfff!" Cas wasted no time in jamming the ring back into the thing's mouth.

It gave them a sad-eyed stare, but didn't protest when Dean hastily rapped with the knocker. The door swung open and Dean began to charge through.

"Are you boys certain this is the way?" Crowley hung back.

"No, but unless you have a better idea, we don't have time to screw around."

Cas explained, "Dean only has thirteen hours to find Sam."

"Well how long has it been?" Crowley asked, seeming deeply reticent about the path beyond.

"Too long." Dean interrupted. "So quit lollygagging and let's go."

Once all three of them had passed beneath the archway, the door slammed behind them. All around, the landscape had changed dramatically - ahead and to either side, as far as any of them could see, was an endless thicket of dense, foggy jungle.


	9. Chapter 9

_ Gabriel's face is ice on the surface and white-hot coals burning bright beneath. Gabriel wonders if Sam even has the slightest idea of what he taught him, what they both taught him, but he is using those lessons now, even if no one who cares can see it. _

_ "I'm not on your side, or Michael's." Gabriel said, voice husky with honesty._

_ Lucifer paints the face of his crumbling vessel with an expression of exhausted betrayal. He hadn't expected it to come to this, with Gabriel, here, now. He still doesn't want it to, but the situation is spilling itself out before him. Anger warms his bones, that Gabriel would do this to him._

_ "I'm on theirs." Gabriel makes his cut and twists the words like a knife._

_ "Brother, don't make me do this." Lucifer doesn't turn his head, but he tries to show what he sees, what he knows, he looks to one side, less seeing the trick and more feeling it. Distress hums along his nerves. He wants Gabriel to pick up on it, to see that the feint is transparent, to back down. _

_ But Gabriel only locks eyes with him, unmoved. "No one makes _us_ do anything." Gabriel offers, even now, connecting with Lucifer, calling to mind the kinship they once possessed, the near-singularity of their power together, the choices that are still available if only Lucifer would open his eyes and jostle his brilliant, amazing mind off the one track that it rides._

_ "I know you think you're doing the right thing, Gabriel." _

_ Something isn't right. _

_ Lucifer goes on: "But I know where your heart truly lies..."_

_ The fake can't engage, can't connect, and by the time Gabriel realizes it, it's long past too late. Lucifer is twisting Gabriel's arm, driving the archangel blade deep into his belly. _

_ "...Here." Lucifer finishes._

_ It goes in cold, all heat seeming to leave through the entry wound, and then the fire ignites, a burn he cannot retreat from, cannot soothe, a burn that will consume him. Gabriel's face distorts, as his brother, the same one that uses one hand to impale him on his own blade, cradles his head with strength, but still with a tenderness that makes this all the more sour. _

_ "Amateur hocus pocus." He says, once the fake has dissolved into purple smoke. "Don't forget, you learned all your tricks from me, little brother."_

_ The last thing anyone says to Gabriel is this, this dismissal, darkened with a shadow of disappointment. _

_ The last thing Gabriel hears is the rush of wind._

_ The last thing Gabriel sees is the light, white and blinding, and he has time to realize he is seeing himself._

_ The last thing Gabriel thinks of is Sam._

_ After the lasts, there is darkness and silence, devoid of thought and time, a deep and resounding nothing. It could be one minute or one million years, the difference would be impossible to tell._

_ The first to return is thought, abstract and wordless, and then his memory is reassembled and he begins to feel himself again. If he had lungs, or a mouth, he would laugh - what were the odds that it would even go this far?._

_ His humor is extinguished when he realizes that it could just as easily stop here, that all it would take is a little forgetting somewhere out there, and this would be his home for eternity. It is not longer his battle to fight, nothing he can do will change what happens now. Eternity would be a long time to be trapped in a void. _

_ But that is the risk he has taken. He does not regret it._

_ And one day, after one minute or one million years, he feels it:_

_ Pain._

_ Thought and memory had come first, and then comes pain. He reminds himself, it could stop here, too. But is the risk he has taken. He does not not regret it. _

_ But it doesn't stop. Pain comes, and then grace, though he cannot touch it, much less use it, it returns, grace is followed by breath, breath by blood, until piece by agonizing piece, Gabriel is jigsawed back together, cursed with knowing that every single stage could be the last, the way he is doomed to spend the rest of time. And every time, as soon as he resigns himself to his fate, he is made just the tiniest bit more whole._

_ The last thing that Gabriel recovers is sight._

_ He opens his eyes._

* * *

Sam gripped his water glass hard enough to show all the tendons in his right hand. He positioned himself on the opposite side of the table from Gabriel, desperate to keep something, anything between them, to keep Gabriel from getting too close.

"It was worse than if you'd never..." His hair fell into his face. "I wish you'd never even tried."

"Those nightmares were fun for you?" Gabriel shot, aggressive like an injured animal trying to hide its wounds from a predator.

"That's my point." He spoke through his teeth. "The nightmares were just... You put a frog in boiling water, it's in pain, it jumps out, right? But you put a frog in warm water and then slowly heat it up, it just gets used to it."

"And the water kills the frog." Gabriel pointed out.

"Don't you realize, it almost..." Sam trailed off, he was sober now, but his head still spun. "You got in my head, you messed things up, you assumed I couldn't handle it on my own, you're just as bad as Dean."

"Hey now." He protested. "I never made a single decision for you. All you had to do was tell me to hit the road and I would have left you to your little pity party." Gabriel's voice was low, an engine's growl. "And I never lied. Think about that. Think about _me_. _I _didn't lie." He ran his hand across the back of the chair, dug his fingers into its padding. A hint of desperation crept in when he added, "Doesn't that mean anything at all?"

"Ever heard of a lie of omission?" Sam took a long-legged step around the curve of the table toward Gabriel and raised a hand to his face and pointed back at himself. "Does something about this just say 'can't handle the truth' or something? I thought I was-"

"Going crazy?"

"It's not... normal."

"Hey, kiddo, that's your hangup, not mine. Us angels, we're not really wired to care about what organs you've got. I think your brother might already be figuring that one out." Gabriel's trademark smirk made its way across his face.

Sam stammered. "I mean, I mean for me, not normal. Not normal dreams to have. So either you were actually involved, or I..." He trailed off.

"Or both." Gabriel suggested. "Both is good. Anyway what was I supposed to do?" Indignation drove Gabriel's voice higher. "You wanted me to stand there in the Elysian and make some big dramatic confession before going off to get myself killed? Would that have been better? Or have you already forgotten? 'Don't tell Dean, don't tell Dean, Dean can't know.'" Gabriel quoted. "Let me tell you Sam, you sure know what to say to a guy."

"Don't make this about that, don't act like you don't understand."

"This," Gabriel gestured to the air between them, "Wasn't supposed to..." He trailed off, running a hand through his hair, trying to reign in emotions that weren't supposed to be this difficult to wrangle. He hadn't meant for any of this. No one _got _Gabriel. He was the trickster, he _got_ them. In all the ages he had lived, it had never been hard for him to run a game on someone, make them think what he wanted, feel what he wanted, and make them think it was their own idea all the while. He played people. People didn't play him.

He supposed he should have seen the storm on the horizon already the day he brought Dean back - Sam hadn't offered him anything, hadn't pleased him or amused him, all Sam had done was want, was look into Gabriel's eyes and show himself, his fear, his hurt, his want, and Gabriel capitulated, thinking it was his own idea all the while.

He knew Sam hadn't meant to play him then, that it was all real, all genuine, but was there any better game? He'd played Gabriel like a fiddle, and that drizzle of connection had turned to a storm, somehow grown too big to run away from or destroy.

He wondered if humans just felt like this all the time, how could they stand it?

"It's not like everything went according to plan" Gabriel tried to explain, the irony not lost on him that it was usually he who was listening as some poor sap tried to excuse the things they'd done.

"You weren't supposed to know it was real. You know, you humans have dreams about people all the time, you were supposed to think it was a regular dream, all in your head. No big deal. You were supposed to just brush it off, forget about it." Gabriel spoke to the surface of the table. "You were so tired. I just-"

"You just got in my head and fixed me, because I couldn't do it myself." Sam was about fed up with feeling like no one believed in him.

"Sam." Gabriel looked up, eyes locking with Sam's. "You could. I know you could. I didn't want you to _have_ to."

Sam's chest filled up slowly with air, and he let it out slower still.

"If I'd told you it was real, that was really me, and then I died, wouldn't that have been worse?" Gabriel asked. "Or if I told you I could come back from the dead, and it never worked? Don't act like you'd be fine." His voice darkened. "We've both seen enough to guess how that would end."

Sam's water glass was released to the table. He made his way across the room and lowered himself to sit on the foot of the bed, resting his elbows on his knees, his head on his hands.

"Did you figure it out, about the talisman?"

"The DVD." Sam said from beneath a curtain of hair, seemingly talking to his legs.

"It wasn't some grand scheme. It was a last-ditch kind of thing. If I'd given it any more thought, honestly, I probably wouldn't have done it."

"How?" Sam looked up at Gabriel, who still leaned his weight on the back of the heavy armchair. "I saw the steps, that ritual wasn't the kind of... it was complicated. It looked like it'd take days, maybe weeks."

Gabriel flashed a half-second smile. "Are you forgetting? Archangel. Not bound by a lot of rules, temporally speaking."

"All that stuff you said, in the dreams..." Sam felt stupid for even asking.

"I told you, kiddo. I never lied."

"So what is all this, then?"

"You deserve a better life." Gabriel admitted. He took a few steps and sat down, sinking into the bed next to Sam. "You Winchesters, every one of you. You don't know what's good for you." His laugh was tinged with a certain morbidity.

"Is Dean okay?" Sam asked.

"He's doing annoyingly well, actually. Though he does have help."

That got a real laugh out Sam, teeth and all. "What, you give him some hints?"

"Tons, but that's not what I meant - I did one better than that. I let him have ol' Seriousface Mcgee."

"Are you talking about- Cas is in there too?" Sam was curious.

"Just in case your meathead brother does something really stupid. Can't be too careful." Gabriel said, quietly covering other reasons that Sam might not find quite so reassuring.

The whorls of Sam's mind slowed a bit, and he found some of his tension creeping away.

Gabriel pursed his lips. "Can I show you something?" He asked "You know, hallucinatory?"

"Nothing weird?"

"Family friendly, I swear."

Sam considered it carefully, and after a moment, gave a slow nod, emblematic of an uneasy -but present- trust.

Gabriel produced something from behind his back, something fist-sized and warm colored. At first, Sam wasn't sure what it was, but when Gabriel offered it, he realized, it was a peach.

"You like peaches?" Gabriel asked.

"Uh..."

"Just a bite."

Sam took the peach and shrugged, as if to say, here goes nothing.


	10. Chapter 10

"Are you boys sure we should be here?" Something raised the little hairs on the back of Crowley's neck.

"I don't think any of us _should_ be here at all." Cas remarked. "Let's just stay on the beaten trail, the jungle can't go on forever."

"Yeah, I'm sure we'll get to the water level soon. Then maybe there'll be an industrial section, and then we'll end up on a volcano." Dean cracked wise as he started to turn around. Neither of them laughed. "What, is the big fancy demon a little scared of— Where'd he go?"

Dean had turned to address Crowley, but there was no Crowley. He was simply gone, as if he had been a figment of their imaginations all along.

Cas turned around to see for himself.

"Cas, what happened?"

"I don't know." His eyes were wide, searching, blaming himself somehow. "He was behind me, and then…"

"Then what?" Dean demanded.

"I don't know."

"Great. We lost Crowley. Am I supposed to go looking for him?" Dean turned and shouted into the jungle, as if he assumed that they were being watched. "You want me to go track him down like he's my buddy or something? 'Cause he's not. I'm not getting distracted." Dean declared to the air.

"I fear this is my fault." Cas murmured.

"Yeah, well, I'm not gonna say I'm not wondering where your head was at that he was able to just _poof_ without you noticing, but don't go beating yourself up."

Cas swallowed, and nodded.

They walked in silence, the two abreast, until they came to a narrow part of the jungle path, where it was time to decide who would take point.

"Cas, what's the matter?" Dean said, seemingly apropos of nothing.

"Why would something be the matter?" He asked.

"Look." Dean pointed at Cas' hand. It was as if someone had taken a photo of him and reduced the opacity – it wasn't clear, but if he paid attention, he could just make out the borders of the leaves and vines beyond him.

"That _is_ alarming." Cas acknowledged. "What does it mean?"

"Yeah, no kidding it's alarming, are you telling me you don't know what it is?"

"I am telling you that."

"Have you ever gone all see-through before?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"So you're just going to go poof too?" Dean suggested.

"Perhaps it would be wise for you to take the lead."

"Are you sure? I feel like I should be keeping an eye on you." But he acquiesced, going ahead through the narrow trail.

Cas took a step forward to follow Dean. He faded a little more. The next step found him more transparent still. He stopped, not wanting to continue the process, but it wasn't dependent on him moving - he kept disappearing, even just standing in place.

"Dean, I don't think I'll be visible much longer." His speech sped up, worry permeated his words, which came out quieter and quieter.

"No no no, you're not going anywhere." Dean demanded. He reached out to grab Cas' hand, but it was incorporeal – his fingers swished right through it.

"Something is strange. I see a cliff."

"What are you talking about? There's no cliff."

"Yes, there…" Cas was in the middle of his sentence when he disappeared completely, leaving nothing but a pair of footprints in the dirt path.

* * *

"Castiel." Gabriel's voice rang clear from behind him.

Cas tried to get his bearings – he was atop a wide stone wall, he figured that was the cliff he had seen. To one side of the wall was the jungle, on the other was a swamp. From the vantage point so far up into the air, he had an incredible, clear view of wide swaths of labyrinth.

Gabriel walked around him, to look at his face.

"Yes, Gabriel? Why did you leave Dean alone?" Cas kept his face steady, blank.

"Dean's a big boy. He'll be fine by himself for a little while. Maybe he'll even _chill_ out a little." Gabriel smiled to himself. It was joke he knew no one else would get.

"How did you return? Considering everything that's going on, in heaven, with the angels on Earth, I feel that this is relevant information." Castiel growled, suspicion chilling him deep.

"Did the boys tell you about my little foray into the movies?"

"Do you mean the pornography?"

"Did you ever wonder why I made a _moving image_ of myself, Castiel? I could have left them a note about Lucifer. I could have made a recording that popped up on their radio. I could have just told them _before_ I went in there and got myself killed." The last word came out just a little quieter, like it was still hard to say.

"An anchoring ritual. Angels aren't supposed to do that." Cas warned.

"And when exactly do you remember me being concerned with what I'm supposed to do?"

"And I suppose the pornography was your idea of joke?"

"Well. I wanted everything to be accurate, after all."

"How did you know it would work?" Cas walked to the edge of the wall and stared out over the maze, gratitude to see a brother he thought dead and anger at the circumstances warring in Castiel's mind.

"I didn't think it would. It was a last-ditch, long-shot kind of thing."

"You went against Lucifer with only a long shot to rely on?" Cas was unable to hide a certain respect from his tone. He looked at Gabriel as though he were a strange creature to be examined.

"After some of the things you've done for the Winchesters, you really think _you_ can lecture _me_ about risks?"

Cas looked at the ground.

"Oh." Gabriel added. "Speaking of stuff you're not supposed to do. I saw your little show back there with the demon. Yeah, you can access your powers, I can't have you running around harmless as a mouse, I'm not trying to get you both killed after all."

"Oh no?" Cas' voice was flat.

Gabriel got close, his face inches from Cas'. "Remember that just because you _can_ do something doesn't mean you _should_. I don't want to see you doing any of that again."

"What if I do?" Cas challenged.

"I'll tip you both into my bog of stench."

"Your…" The words didn't resolve immediately into meaning.

"I told you, I'm not out to kill you, but who says I can't make you smell bad? Like a mark you get by cheating."

"Very well. Why am I here in the first place?"

"I'll tell you why I brought you here now." Gabriel reached behind his back and produced a round, ripe peach. "Because Dean trusts you. Give him this."

Cas' face turned to angry steel, voice coming out like sandpaper through the snarl of his mouth. "Threaten what you want; nothing you say will make me hurt Dean for you. You should know that by now."

Gabriel laughed. "Down, boy. Why are you losing your head over him anyway? It won't hurt. In fact, you ask me, I think he'll like it. I'd like it, anyway. But it won't do a lick of damage. Cross my heart."

"Are you certain? I won't do anything to harm him. Not after what he said." The holy fire in his tone was more like embers, now.

"Oh?" Gabriel took a newfound interest. "And what did he say?"

Cas ignored him. "You're sure it's safe?"

"Completely. He's gotta be getting hungry."

"What will happen?"

"Now now, no spoilers."

"But it won't hurt?"

"Right." He locked eyes with Cas. "Give me your word. Will you do it?"

Cas sighed. "I suppose. Fine."

"In that case, here." Gabriel snapped, and a rope, coiled like a snake, appeared at Cas' feet. "A reward, for a good decision. He'll be along any time now. You'll want this when he gets close." He pointed further down the wall. "Probably around there somewhere."

Cas turned to walk the wall in the direction where Gabriel pointed, rope slung around his shoulder. He didn't even turn back to see Gabriel gone.

* * *

"CAS!" Dean shouted, half-hoping that he was still there, but that Dean simply couldn't see him. He watched the dirt, looking for new footprints, but there were none.

Dean sighed. The noises of the untamed flora and fauna around him seemed to get a little louder, the light seemed to get a little dimmer. Alone wasn't something Dean Winchester usually minded _too_ much, but in this place, now, he'd have even taken Crowley's company over none at all. He started onward, suddenly unsure of himself. He wondered why, with Cas or Sam behind him, he could simply make choices almost at random and feel a strength in his conviction, but now, alone, no decision seemed right.

He refused to consider the possibility that he was being taught something.

A high pitched voice carried through the trees. "Who doin all that shoutin?"

"I donno man, wasn't me!" Came another, similar one.

Past the slender tree trunks in the near distance, Dean saw a flash of orange, and then another. He set his jaw. Maybe he could just make it past without being noticed?

"Hey, there he be!" Called out another voice, and Dean twisted his head and identified the speaker – a big-eared tufted, monkey-like creature, standing on two feet maybe chest-high, talking through a bird's beak. From head to toe, the thing was the kind of neon orange found otherwise only in a student's highlighter.

"Hey man, what you shoutin' for!?" They called out, all running through the trees at him at once.

Dean took off, but upon his arrival at the clearing he saw ahead, another two orange monkeys stood at the other end.

"Shit." Dean breathed heavy. "What do you want with me?" He backed against a tree.

"Just relax, man, we're just here to play!"

He watched on, suddenly finding his well of shock replenished as one of them detached its own leg – it was bloodless, as if they were just a herd of Mr. Potato Heads. The leg writhed and twitched by itself as its owner scraped it along the ground, starting a bonfire.

Dean's lip cringed up, and his jaw started to drop. Disgust was evident, and he didn't even make the least attempt to conceal it.

"Oh for the love of fuck." Dean muttered under his breath

"Don't you wanna play with us?" One of them got up his face, breath like a coal fire. Inches from his nose, it grasped its own long, pointed ears in spindly, four-fingered fists and pulled upward. Its head came easily free of its neck with a light sucking sound.

"I think I'm gonna be sick." Dean said.

"You just need to relax! You don't have to be a hero, just relax and have a good time, dude. Think smaller!" It said, tossing its head in the air. "I'm sure you know this game!"

Dean bit his lip and timed himself carefully. When the head came down, he gave it a hard smack, as if it were a volleyball. A creepy sensation zinged up his arm, having touched it.

"Ugh." He started trying to run.

"Hey, don't you know the rules, man?!" Called out the head, recently caught by another one. "Use your own head!"

"Yeah, that's what I'm doing!" Dean shot back.

"Hey, after him! We get to toss his head now, right?"

A chorus of cheers went up. They were faster than Dean would have expected and they knew the contours of the jungle. Keeping a lead on them was tough. Just when he thought their shouts started to sound farther and farther behind, a brick wall cut the path.

He huffed, looking around for a way out as the potato-head monkeys caught up, threats of playful decapitation floating his way through the distance between them. Gabriel had gone too far, Dean thought, leaving him in a jungle surrounded by monsters, unarmed. He wondered what happened next, if those things got the better of him? They weren't strong, but there were a lot of—

"Dean!"

He whipped around. A rope was dropping from the top of the wall. Cas' face, just visible from where Dean stood, was sharply bent into a determined frown.

"Oh, man, are you a sight for sore eyes." His smile came easy. "So much for no condition to help, huh?" He shouted up, grabbing onto the rope and scrabbling against the wall as Cas pulled.

"Uh. Right." Cas grunted.

At the bottom of the rope, the fire-monkies pulled back hard. Cas pulled harder, but it wasn't enough, he needed more. He remembered what Gabriel had said, but his human strength wasn't enough, he didn't see any alternative. It was do this, or leave Dean to some fate below. At least, whatever came next, they'd face it together.

It wasn't long ago that this would have been a much harder decision, but not now.

He looked into his grace, and found access, just as he expected. Like before, it wouldn't be much if this was a real fight in the outside world, but for this, it was plenty. A little extra strength was all it would take.

The rope slid up easily. Too easily.

Dean went flying over the rim of the wall and hit Cas at full speed, sending them both toppling against the rocks behind him. Cas knew, as soon as he made impact, that it was no accident, the way the rocks gave way and sent them sliding down a steep incline and down into a dark shaft in the stone.

He felt Dean's fist tangle into the back of his trenchcoat, keeping them together for the slide. Neither of them made a sound until, at last, an opening in the slanted tunnel dumped them unceremoniously onto the ground below, out of breath and disoriented.

"Stupid!" Someone shouted.

"Was that you?" Dean asked.

"No." Cas confirmed.

"Not me either." Dean puzzled.

"_It was me you bloody lunatics, get off!" _

Both of them scrambled to climb off of Crowley.

"You're alright!" Cas smiled.

"What are you so happy about?" Crowley's face betrayed no sign of good cheer. "That I provided you a landing pad? You're not bloody welcome."

"I think he was worried about you." Dean said, and added, rolling his eyes: "Not sure why."

"At any rate, I think I know which way you have to go." Crowley said, covering his nose with a handkerchief. "I've been that way." He pointed behind him. "And I can tell you it is most definitely not that way."

At about the same time as Crowley moved his hand to his face, it hit Dean as well.

"Jesus fucking Christ what is that smell."

Cas shot Dean a look, but said nothing, deliberately pulling away from the senses of his vessel as far as he could – even in that place where the pain of a fight would be nothing but a distant brush of feeling, the odor reached him.

For the first time since they'd dirtied Crowley's suit, Dean got a look around – this side of the wall was no longer a forest, but a swamp, gray-brown willows leaning low over ponds and still pools of a thick, tarry liquid that took the place of water. Gas bubbled up from below, who knew how deep, and Dean surmised that it was that which gave the air its foulness.

"Gabriel sure has a sense of humor, doesn't he?" Dean grumbled.

"I spotted a bridge up ahead." Crowley said through his handkerchief. "You know, in case you were at all interested in getting out here."

They were cautious. Cas picked up the dangling pieces of belt and held them high in one hand as they rounded a corner, stepping on the roots of a tree to avoid the creeping fluid.

"There." Cas pointed. "He was right."

"Have I ever led you astray?"

"Should I dignify that with a response?" Dean projected his incredulity.

"I think you just did." Crowley smirked.

As they approached the bridge, a new voice cut in.

"Just where do you think you're going?" It was womanly, but deep, like it was dragged over the sand. Before them, at the cusp of the bridge, an image flickered out of nothing – unsteady at first, blinking in and out like an old television before finally solidifying.

"Meg?" Cas stepped forward. "Aren't you…"

"Super dead, thanks for that by the way." She spoke over Cas' shoulder at Crowley. "This is just a projection." She put a finger to her chin facetiously and stared right at Dean. "Boy, I wonder what that means for you. Enjoy analyzing that."

Cas' face was a picture of compassion. "Are you in any pain?"

"Who cares." Crowley dismissed.

When Cas spun around, all the kindness had drained. "I don't want to hear you talk to her."

"I'm so scared." Crowley positively dripped with sarcasm.

"You should be."

"Guys!" Dean said. "How about we focus?" He stepped forward. "Meg, or Meg-hologram, or whatever: What's the deal here? Do we have to solve a riddle or something?"

She laughed, a sick, grating sound. Her face came to rest in a stone-eyed smirk. "You just need my permission."

"And do we have it?" Dean asked.

"Your friend here loves his deals." She pointed out. "Here's one for you. He says he's sorry, I'll let you pass."

Crowley chuckled. "I don't think so."

"It's not like I'm real. So it's harmless, right? Saying sorry to a hologram? What's so bad about it?" She probed.

"I'm not saying sorry to you."

"Crowley." Dean spoke through his teeth. "I don't know if you noticed, but we're kind of low on time, here? We'll all just forget it ever happened, I swear, just do it."

Crowley's lips were pursed.

Cas stood close to her. "I don't know what memories you retain. I know you're angry. But please. If you look back on the time we spent together fondly in the least, do me this favor. Just let us go. We need to get Dean to the castle."

Her expression softened, not by much, but just the littlest bit. "You really need to get those puppy eyes under control, Clarence."

"Will you do it, though?"

She sighed. "Let's make one thing clear. I'm not doing this because I don't want that apology. So I'll go easy on you" She locked eyes with Crowley. "Admit you owe him one."

Dean presented Crowley with one of his very finest angry glares.

Cas' face was the kindest, a hopeful look.

Under the pressure, Crowley grumbled. "Fine. Cas. I owe you one."

The projection of Meg smiled. "Isn't that nice. Now I'll do you one better than letting you across the bridge. I'll go so far as to tell you what Gabriel didn't want you to find out."

"Hold on." Dean said. "Aren't you just a recording, he set up? How can you say something he doesn't want you to say?"

"I'm a projection, not a video tape, smarty. Anyway, take my advice or don't, but the bridge is out."

"Looks fine to me." Dean said.

"Then go ahead and walk on it, see what happens. Or, do the smart thing, and take the other path." She snapped her fingers in a way that was eerily familiar, but gave no one pause – they were too concerned with escaping the distracting smell. She caused stones to rise out of the bog far below the bridge.

"Dean, I think we should do what she says." Cas reported.

"Yeah yeah. Thanks, or something."

Crowley said nothing. He was eager to cross away from the whole situation, and relieved when they made it safely to the other side and had a solid, less-smelly path to walk.

"I just wish we had something to eat. I don't suppose either of you are hungry."

Both Crowley and Cas fixed Dean with nearly the same look – one of mild impatience. Neither of them particularly cared what their vessels wanted, but Dean didn't have the luxury of shutting out his hunger.

"Alright, well, let's go, come on, nevermind."

"Actually, Dean." Cas said, "I do have, uh… something."

"You got a cheeseburger in the pocket of that thing?" Dean asked.

"Well, no, but… I do have… um." He hesitated.

"Out with it, c'mon."

Full of sheepish timidity that Dean didn't understand, Cas pulled a peach from the pocket of his coat.

"Hey, well, better than nothing, huh?" He said, biting deep into the flesh of the fruit.

Cas watched cautiously as Dean swallowed.

"This tastes a little weird though… oh man." The world started to swim. "Where did you get… this…" His head wheeled around. In his vision, Cas' face was warping, features dancing, trees and ground in the background swaying precariously.

"I'm sorry, Dean, are you alright?" Cas said, sounding a thousand miles away. "Can you hear me? He said it wouldn't hurt you. Dean? Dean!"

Before his eyes, Dean was sure he saw a bubble, and in the twisting colors, there was a house, and the house was there, and the bubble wasn't in front of him but all around.

Somewhere on another planet, he heard Crowley's low mumble, and Cas saying something that sounded like "We have to follow it…" He didn't hear anything after that.


	11. Chapter 11

Powdery snow drifted down onto the clearing in the wood, small flakes taking their time to join the several inches already covering the grass and giving little white hats to the chopped wood in the log pile outside the house. Anything that hadn't migrated was hibernating, and the path behind through the trees was cold and quiet and marked with one set of tire tracks.

The cabin windows threw a warm glow onto the dusk-lit snow outside. Through the glass, he could see Sam, nearly as tall as the deep green pine he was wrestling into a tree-stand. The chimney gently puffed the smell of wood smoke into the air.

Dean's breath came out in little white puffs. Standing next to the car, his ears stung with the cold. He felt as though he'd just walked into a room and forgotten what he'd come for, and then he looked down and remembered – he had gone on a beer run. It seemed a bit like a vague dream, but a case of Smithwick's rested in his arms nonetheless. He made boot-prints in the garden path on his way to the door.

"Hey, Dean, you made it back just in time. I got the tree up and Gabe's up in the attic getting the rest of the decorations. I'm told Cas has never had hot chocolate. I can't believe you never made your famous recipe for him." Sam rambled, arms full of silvery tinsel. "I did my best, but I probably should have just waited for you."

Four steaming mugs sat on the counter that separated the living room from the small galley kitchen.

"Well don't just stand there." Sam laughed.

Hazily, Dean realized he was dripping melted snow on the mat. Once divested of his winter clothes, he took a sip out of the mug – black with the word KANSAS in an almost illegibly blocky font on the side.

"You did fine." Dean said. He reached into the kitchen cabinet and, when Sam's back was turned, he added a little more nutmeg and gave the cups each a quick stir.

Cas emerged from a room in the back, and as if it had only been created in his mind in that moment, Dean suddenly remembered it was _their _room. He was momentarily stunned at his clothes – loose jeans and a long striped sweater, but then he remembered, of course, Cas had hung up his trenchcoat ages ago.

"You took too long." Cas scolded quietly. "I worried that you were stuck in the snow. That car isn't made for this kind of weather." He stood close, which wasn't totally unusual, but Dean almost stumbled backwards when Cas rested his head on Dean's shoulder.

No, wait. That was normal. He always did that.

Dean twined his fingers with Cas' in a dreamy way that was almost automatic.

"I keep telling you, Dean," Sam said adjusting the drape of the little white lightbulbs, "You gotta get a pickup if we're going to live out here. I mean, at least put some snow tires on or something."

Dean nodded mutely.

"Hey, did you win the fight with the tree?" Gabriel said, strolling in still in his pajamas and a bathrobe, a cardboard box under each arm. He set the boxes on the coffee table and slipped a hand around Sam's waist.

Sam had to bend a little to plant a light peck on the top of his head.

"What did you find up there?" Dean asked, crossing the room and passing Gabriel a mug of his own. He glanced back at Cas, who was still frittering about in the kitchen.

"You mean other than Narnia?" Gabriel joked. "A bunch of stuff, some of it looks a little old – did someone _actually _give you guys a chupacabra Christmas ornament? Seems in bad taste, doesn't it?"

Sam laughed. "I think it's kinda cute, in a creepy way. Where do you think we should put it?" He asked Dean.

Dean frowned. "Who was it?"

"Who was what?"

"Who gave it to us?"

"Oh… I don't… Does it matter?"

"Yeah, it does." His voice turned hard. "Something like that, you'd think we'd remember who gave it to us. It's kind of a weird gift, isn't it? Since when do hunters pass out Christmas ornaments?"

"It's fine if you don't want to put it up."

"Something's not right." He said.

Gabriel's face flashed, some strange expression passing through. Only Dean noticed it before it faded.

Cas stepped out of the kitchen. "I found the marshmallows." He had a bag of fat white marshmallows in one hand, and long bamboo skewers in the other. He rested them on the coffee table and skewered one. Dean watched him roll up his sleeves and bend over the fire long enough to blacken the outside of his marshmallow.

"Is this right?" He asked Gabriel.

"Don't say anything." Sam cut him off. "Some people like it like that." He defended his preference.

"Yeah, weirdos." Dean teased, popping one of the marshmallows from the bag into his hot chocolate and taking a long sip.

Cas took a bite. "I don't know. It's not bad." With a mouth full of burnt candy, he leaned in and let his lips brush the corner of Dean's mouth, giving Dean little tingles around that side of his face.

"Yeah, well let me roast one for you _properly_ so you can compare." Dean demanded, earning a scoff from Sam.

A low hum came from Cas as he hung little glass icicles on the tips of branches, some Christmas song Dean didn't really know well beyond what he'd heard in hotel lobbies and shopping malls after Thanksgiving. He thought it was a little bit of a travesty that _Cas_ knew Christmas songs better than him. It was about time he had a real Christmas. Maybe he'd get Cas to teach him the words.

The fire was warm, and as Dean turned the marshmallow he would use to prove to Cas that it was better this way, he found himself staring into it, a little mesmerized. In the flames, he thought he saw something – the shape of a monkey with tufts of hair at its chest and hips, a pair of doors, a golden knob with a spike on one end. They faded, but what was left in his mind was the image of a clock that went to thirteen.

Thirteen.

He blinked and looked around.

"No." he whispered.

Cas looked at him quizzically, but before anyone could stop him, he stood up and made for the door. He ran out into the winter night stocking footed, and found it not cold in the least. He didn't stop until he got to the end, where he had parked the car, and there was a silver wall just beyond it, a dome that stretched up and above him as far as he could see. His hands balled into fists.

He got in the car, threw it into reverse, and hit the gas. The car cut straight through the silver barrier like it was made of sugar-glass and it shattered.

The trees and the house dissolved into glittering powder. The car around him followed just the same. The world fell away and through the strange remains, Dean fell too.

* * *

He sat up in bed and put his hand to the wall to steady himself. Cold sweat stuck the shirts to his chest. He sucked a few heavy breaths. His posters were on the wall, his blankets were on his legs, and his shoes were in the corner… he was safe in the bunker, in the room he was coming to call home. He took a moment to realize that he had fallen asleep in his jeans and jacket, but stranger things had happened.

He tipped back down, not sure he wanted to climb out of bed yet. His eyes fell closed, and he tried to sort the images – they weren't dreamlike at all, more like memories, so real he kept searching the details in his mind, looking for the things that were wrong, that would make him feel safe.

The door opened, his bedroom door, with an aged creak.

"Did you want some coffee?"

"Cas? What are you doing here?" Dean said without thinking. He looked Cas up and down, realized he was wearing a sleepy smile and Dean's own pajamas. He had a steaming mug in each hand.

"I'm sorry." Cas looked down. "I didn't know, I thought you'd…" His face sank, like Dean had delivered a painful blow.

"Hey, hey, wait." Dean said. "Yeah, I'll take a coffee. I guess I should get up. Man I had the weirdest dream. We were in a maze, or something…" It was already fading.

"Strange." Cas handed him a black mug. The almost illegibly blocky letters on one side spelled KANSAS. Dean frowned at the mug.

"Hey, is Sam up?" He asked, pushing himself out of the bed and slipping on his shoes.

"I don't know." Cas returned. "Why don't you just stay here a little longer?" His face was inquisitive, but Dean knew him too well, there was iron beneath, seemingly uncalled for by the situation.

"Well, did you see him around when you went for the coffee?" Dean asked.

"No. What does it matter? You don't need to start your day yet, do you?" Cas set his cup down on Dean's bedside table. He sat on the bed and pulled his bare feet up into a cross-legged pose.

"What do you mean? We've got stuff to do."

"We don't need him." Cas growled, anger pulling creases into his brow. "You don't need him. You can just stay with me."

Dean looked at the mug again, then back to Cas. "What are you talking about? Are you feeling alright?" Dean shook his head.

"I'm feeling fine, now come away from there, sit with me." Cas' voice was thick with irritation, urgency.

He started to take a swig of the coffee as he opened the door.

On the other side was another world – a world of junk, castaway pieces of furniture and scrap and tossed away objects, piled high in all directions. It was as if someone had plucked his room from the bunker and placed it smack in the center of the world's biggest garbage dump.

He spat the coffee.

"What the hell is this." He demanded.

"I told you. Don't bother with that." Cas responded, then softened his tone again. "Just stay in here. It's better in here, don't you think?"

"What are you talking about?"

"What's out there that you need?"

Dean paused. "I was looking for something. I don't… Something important. I was running out of time."

"It was just a dream, Dean."

"No. No. I was really-" He stared at the mug.

"Come and sit down."

"Sam."

"What?"

"It was Sammy. I have to save Sam!" He threw the mug across the room.

When the black ceramic hit the wall, it shattered. Cas gave Dean a beleaguered sigh, and turned to glitter dust. Paint stripped itself off the walls, which started themselves to crumble. He was left standing in room-shaped pit at the center of a vast expanse of broken things.

"Come on!" Cas—the real Cas—shouted from a ledge at the top of the destroyed wall. "We have to hurry, there's not much time!"

"Best get a move on, Squirrel." Crowley said from behind Cas.

Dean stepped up onto the strange replica of his desk and Cas wrapped his hand around Dean's forearm. Dean grabbed back and held on tight as he climbed up.

"What happened to you?" Cas asked.

"Distractions, it was all just distractions." Dean locked on to Cas' eyes, then cast a wary glance at the room below. "I… _think_ it's over. Just don't go bringing me any hot beverages." He remembered the fire, and the marshmallows, and his heart hurt.

Cas couldn't make head nor tail of that, but it wasn't the time to look for explanations.

"If you'll look to your left," Crowley said in the style of a tour guide, "You'll see the Gabriel's castle." He added onto the end: "I sure hope you two know what you're doing."

"Yeah, me too." Dean said, eyeing the spires and parapets that started just at the end of the trash field. _Almost there_, he thought.


	12. Chapter 12

"You Winchesters." Gabriel's voice woke Sam, who found himself curled up on top of the fluffy comforter. "I should have guessed."

He stretched out the crick in his neck. "What _about_ us?"

"Do you think that was easy?" Gabriel's back was to Sam, he leaned hard on the table, hair askew, sucking air. "_Do you think any of this is easy_?" He growled. He turned around and hobbled stiffly to the wide bed. He let himself fall to the mattress on his side, glamorous silks stained and stuck to his skin. His eyes flashed wild.

"What did you do?"

"I gave you a _paradise_. I could have held it up for... forever." He insisted, seemingly ignoring his current condition. "We could have stayed there. You could have. A better life." He paused for breath, filling his lungs with indignation. "Like I said."

"Gabriel." Sam said, sitting cross legged next to him. "It was nice."

"But you two can't just have nice things, can you." It came out like a hiss.

"It wasn't real. Are you gonna be okay?"

"What do you mean it wasn't real?" He protested, fire in his voice. "You smelled the pine, you heard the crack of the fire, you saw the snow, you tasted the chocolate, you felt..." He took another hard breath. "You felt..." He coughed hard, face turning red.

One of Sam's excessively long arms stretched out to where Gabriel gripped the front of his own shirt, putting creases in the shimmering fabric. His fingers loosened at the touch of Sam's hand.

"I know." Sam said. "It's so easy, when it's a dream, but me and Dean, you know, things have never been easy. They don't have to be. We don't need-" He gestured with his free hand to the beautiful room around him. "I don't need this to be happy."

"You'd think it wouldn't hurt." Gabriel tried to joke. He looked down at the place where their hands touched. He focused on breathing, something he didn't normally need, and it worried him.

"I read about the spell." Sam said. "You won't be... I mean, are you sure you..." He couldn't think of way to remind him about what the ritual stole from him without implying some kind of insult.

"Go ahead. Say it." He pushed a fist against the bed.

"There's still one thing I don't understand."

"I thought you were the clever one." Gabriel cracked.

"You said you wanted me to forget about the dreams, to think they were just me, my mind, no big deal, as you said. But if I'd done that, like you wanted, I wouldn't have watched it, missed you, remembered-" Sam swallowed. "It would have failed. You'd have been stuck in that void forever.

"What I wanted for you and what I wanted for me," Gabriel confessed, "Not necessarily the same thing. If you think for a second I didn't selfishly hope you'd figure it out and bring me back, you really are dumb. But when I came to and realized why, realized what you must have gone through to get me that far? I felt- I was sure you'd figured me out, done it on purpose, but for that to have been an _accident_, for you to have felt what you did, but with no hope, no purpose. And I did that to you." The tears that had balanced on the rim of his eyes finally reached their breaking point and one slipped down his cheek, then another. "I did that to you, it was my fault."

"Gabe." Sam sighed, and closed his eyes. Played out against the back of his lids were flashes, micro-scenes, from one dream or another, lips and fingertips and whispers. When he opened them, he threw his worries to the winds and leaned forward, bending over his folded legs, and touched his mouth softly to Gabriel's forehead.

Gabriel's breathing slowed, steadied. The steel band invisibly tightened around his chest and shoulders broke away.

"I'm not, I mean, me and Dean," Sam's thoughts were disorganized. "You gotta know we're never going to stop. We're going to have to drop dead, and stay that way, and even then who knows." Sam said. "Because a good dream is only good for _us_, and there's too many- too much we have to do to ever feel good about that." He barely noticed his thumb shifting against Gabriel's. "What if we tried, you and me, in the real world? It's messy and it's hard, but when you win, you win for real."

"Idiots." Gabriel muttered affectionately under his breath before he met Sam's eyes. "I know I can't keep you here forever, and even if I could, you'd just..." Gabriel tried his best to imitate Sam's impossibly persuasive puppy eyes. "And you know I'd just be done for."

Sam laughed freely.

Gabriel sat up, stable. "But I don't have to put up with that doofus talking to you like that, do I? I know you knuckleheads don't know how to relax, I could hand you paradise and you'd probably still find danger to stand in front of, but can't you just give it a shot for a little longer? I mean, you were totally in the right. He was way, way out of line. Are you telling me you're not mad?"

"No, I'm mad, I'm definitely mad."

"Well, he's not kidding around about getting you back. So there's that" Gabriel admitted. The clock was nearly at thirteen hours. "He's at the base of the castle now."

"Castle!?" Sam looked around. He had more or less assumed from the lack of functioning doors that it was an isolated space.

"It's called style, alright?" Gabriel was clearly feeling better.

"Can I talk to him?"

"Yeah, yeah, but I can't have you two running off. Game's not over just yet." He blinked away the puffiness in his eyes, smirking, back to mischief. "How about a projection? Like an image?"

"Like a hologram?"

"Yeah. Only, usually I do that with dead people. This would be real-time. You'd be there, but not."

"Sure, I guess. Are you... okay though?"

Gabriel didn't answer. He just reached out and touched Sam's forehead.

* * *

"I have to go alone." .

"Excellent." Said Crowley

"No." Said Cas. "No. We're coming with you."

"Whoa." Crowley stopped him. "Slow down. Who's we?"

Cas gave Crowley a hard glare.

"Relax." Dean said. He brushed the back of his hand against Cas', earning a sudden start and wide-eyed glance that he turned into a more meaningful look. "Neither of you are coming. I'm going in alone, that's just how it's done." Dean turned toward the staircase.

"No argument here." Crowley found a comfortable flattish stone around the entrance to the staircase and sat down.

"I don't like it." Cas marched around Dean to face him, blocking his passage at a distance that, given the hallucinations he'd just had, made Dean feel a little nervos. "You don't know what he's got up there in the tower. It doesn't make sense."

"It's just what I have to do." Dean repeated.

"Why do you feel the need to throw yourself in the line of danger?" Cas stood at a distance typically reserved for someone you were either about to punch or to kiss - given the choice, at this moment, he would have to think about it.

"I'll be fine. It's like you said. The best way is to just play the game, well, this is part of it."

"How do you know that?"

"I just do, okay?" Dean demanded.

Cas gave Dean a hard stare. His jaw tightened. "I understand. But we will stay as close as we can. If you require aid for any reason, do not hesitate."

"I won't. I'll give you a shout."

"But do consider the word need very carefully." Crowley added.

"For any reason." Cas reminded. He knew that the probability of true danger was slim, but anxiety fluttered inside him regardless as he watched Dean disappear up the spiral staircase. He sat on the benchlike structure next to Crowley, ears perked and ready, should the call come.

When this was over, he resolved to attempt to reopen the conversation he and Dean had had in the hedges. He had been turning it over inwardly for much of their journey since.

Cas knew that the thread that tied him to Dean was a strong one, one that tugged at him, even pulled him powerfully enough to direct his actions in the face of a seemingly impossible force on the other side. All Dean had to say was three words, I need you, and the programming of the whole host of heaven, of hands much stronger than his, would fall away. Hester had said it best - the moment he'd laid a hand on Dean in hell, he was lost.

It took being human, even only for awhile, to understand what that really meant, what words he could put to it, how one was supposed to respond, and how Dean might answer him. He wasn't oblivious - he knew that humans were terribly concerned with surface things, that they were just made that way, after all, their labels and categories had long helped them to survive.

He knew that this vessel (to this day he had a hard time remembering it was truly _his body_ now, grace or no) was not the sort of body that Dean was likely to respond to, given past behavior. At the same time, however, he found it hard to believe that Dean, on the other side of the thread, couldn't feel it as well. He wanted to think that this strange thing they shared would somehow reach beyond that.

When Dean brushed his hand, when they stood face to face, Cas had searched a little - he didn't mean to be invasive, but he decided it wasn't too much, just to see if what he considered was possible. As they spoke, he silently examined the temperature of Dean's skin, his blood pressure, his heart rate, size of his pupils.

It wasn't the first time he had collected this data, but it was a valuable confirmation. He surmised from these things that the conversation might be an uncomfortable one, but he was prepared for that, he was almost certain now that it would have a positive outcome. He was willing to take what time was needed.

Crowley noted Cas' pensive stance. "I know it's probably not my business, but-"

"It isn't." Cas cut him off.


	13. Chapter 13

Sam had shown Dean some kind of art print once, like this. He'd taken a book out of the library – optical illusions. Dean remembered the one that could be rabbit or a duck, it depended which way you looked, and one where there was an elephant whose legs you couldn't really count. And there was a picture of a room.

Nothing made sense, and it caused Dean to stumble as soon as he was through the arched doorway, the total lack of logic confronting him viciously. To his left and right were staircases devoid of any bannister or rail. At the end of the ledge, he could peer out over the long, deep room. Above and below, landings and archways and stairs abounded, but few were right side up – many stretched out upside down, or tilted ninety degrees. Most seemed useless. Stairs led nowhere, doors opened onto brick walls.

"Gabriel! I know you're in here!" Dean shouted, adding more quietly: "Somewhere."

He went right, tripping up the stairs and through another door – but as soon as he passed through the arched doorway he found himself on another landing and the room seemed to have completely twisted, all the staircases had changed angles, the lights had shifted, like it was different entirely.

It took a good deal of examination for him to realize that it was the same room, that it hadn't changed at all – he was seeing it upside down, or he had before, or perhaps there was no up at all.

Dean peered with great caution over the ledge.

Gabriel peered coldly back. His feet were anchored to the other side of the ledge, as if Dean stood upon a mirror and Gabriel's image met his at the soles of their shoes. His arms were crossed, defiant of Dean's stubborn progress. He stepped forward.

When Gabriel's boot hit the end of the ledge, he swung up, pivoting from the feet like the spoke on a wheel. He stood before Dean, eyes ablaze with golden fire.

"What's wrong, Dean? Is your little world not following your rules?" His tone was rich and wry. He took long strides toward Dean, who stumbled backward, but Gabriel just kept going, incorporeal, passing _through _Dean and out through the doorway Dean had just entered.

"Have you considered that maybe you don't _make_ the rules?" Gabriel said, calling Dean's attention to an archway a story above, where Gabriel stood upside-down, neck craned upward to look down at Dean. In his hand was another crystal, clear and prismatic, bouncing light and making a spectrum of color within itself.

He reared back like a pitcher and threw it into the room. Dean followed its path with his eyes. It bounced from one staircase to another, tumbling impossibly up against the underside like some trick done with magnets. It flitted to the top – or the bottom, Dean wasn't sure what to call it - Of that staircase, and into the shadow. He watched the shadow, searching the dark places for some understanding of what it meant.

The shadows shifted, and from the underside of the landing, it was Sam that stepped into the light.

"Sam! Sammy!" Dean hollered, vocal chords straining.

Sam looked down – that was, down for Sam, toward his feet. He jogged against one impossible stair and around to another, through an archway and out, until he stood on the stairs mere feet from Dean, comfortably hovering sideways at a ninety degree angle.

"You're uh… pretty good at this then, huh?" Dean frowned and blinked, tentative suspicion leaking out through his face. "Okay, I'm guessing you're not.. Uh..." His eyes flicked around, looking for Gabriel, the source of all the trouble, but he was nowhere to be seen.

"No, I'm not actually here, but I'm not far." Sam said, steady.

"So you want to help me out here, or what?"

Sam's eyebrows lifted in a fusion of curiosity and amusement. "Help you do what?" He asked.

"Get you and get out of here. Duh. What else?"

"Dean, did you consider for a second that I might not want to be _got_?"

"You're kidding me." His face went slack with irritation. "Don't give me this crap, Sam, come on, give me the secret key or route through the maze or whatever and let's just get back to business."

"Business, what business? Do you mean the business you said, not thirteen hours ago, that you'd be better off handling alone? That you wished me away from?"

Dean sighed and slipped a hand through his hair. "Alright. You got me. That was…. Really damn stupid."

Sam made a strange jump, gravity shifting around him so that he could land on the same platform with Dean. "I'm not going to say I've exactly been tortured." A youthful smile toyed with the corner of his mouth. "You should see the Jacuzzi tub."

"It's not real, Sam."

"I know." Regret lay in the shade of his words. "It's funny, that's what _I_ said. I guess I just wanted you to think about what you would do – if I did want to stay."

"You wouldn't do that." Dean's voice was low.

"I don't know, Dean. I did it before, didn't I? Walk away? What if I did it again?"

"You wouldn't."

"But what if I did, is the point?"

"You think I wasn't worried about that?" Dean leaned in. "You think I wasn't walking around this messed up dump wondering if it was even for anything?"

Sam kept his distance. "No, I think you were just making choices and assuming I'd want to do things your way, that you'd lead and I'd follow and there'd never be any reason I should be consulted on my own life, my own future, whatever future I've even got at this point. It's not even just me; you do it to whoever you care about."

"Excuse me for trying to protect people." Dean said, sounding as though he were trying to set a record for how put-upon one person could be.

"People?" Sam scoffed. "You even do it to Cas! An angel of the freaking lord and you still push him around like he's part of your personal army and I let you get away with it because you're you, you're my big brother, and he lets you get away with it because he's—" Sam stopped and looked away. He huffed out the rest of his breath all at once in something like an aborted laugh. His hands went into his pockets. "That's fine, by the way."

"He's what? What's fine?" He felt like someone left out of a joke.

"Nothing. The point is: what _would _you do if I said I wanted to stay?"

Dean tried to keep his face flat, but the corners of his eyes showed the distress that it caused him to picture it. "I'd have to go, I guess. To leave. You're right. I was wrong. I don't rule you, and I don't get to make those calls. It just hurt. You scared me, and it hurt, to think you'd choose death, or a pocket universe, or anything…"

"I wouldn't." Sam said quietly. "I didn't. That's what got us into this whole mess. You have this way, Dean. No one wants to let you down, ever, it's like a spell. I used to think it was just me, that would come running when you called, no matter how inconvenient, no matter how much of a pain in the ass it was, but then I started to see it – Cas, most obviously, but others too. Bobby. Jo. Even Charlie, even people who barely know you, all you have to say to anybody is 'I need you,' and they come flying in, stuck to you like you're the only piece of wood in shipwreck, ready to do whatever you say, no matter how insane or improbable."

"What are you saying?" Dean searched Sam's face.

"I'm saying there's no reason to doubt. No reason to fear. I'm not going anywhere. But there's also no reason to try to seize control because you don't have to. And as much as I want to be saying you have to be careful with a thing like that, I don't think I need to say it, I think you already know."

"You're damn right I know." The words came out low, from the back of Dean's throat. "I hear you. Okay? You're right. But I don't… I _can't_ regret what I did in that hospital, I can't, because the alternative is just—You're right, but as crappy as it is, I'd probably do it again. You understand?"

Sam laughed, short and resigned. "Yeah, I do."

"So? You want to help me out here?" He gestured to the twisted world around them. "You know the way out of this bad trip?"

Sam locked eyes with Dean, and flicked his gaze downward, into the empty space at the middle of the room. "Don't overthink it."

Dean nodded minutely. He looked deep over the edge of the sandy platform. When he looked up, Sam was gone.

Dean jumped, and pieces of stair and castle drifted by as the world slowed.

* * *

There was no room, no castle, no maze. It looked to Dean as if everything had crumbled, and he was walking amidst the pieces floating around him in the air, frozen as they fell. There was nothing else but empty darkness in the distance, above, and below, like standing inside the night sky. The far end of the only remaining platform was covered in shroud and shade, and from the hazy archway, Gabriel emerged.

He was clad entirely in white - his high boots and tights, his tunic, his long and whispery cloak, all snow white, all billowing in a wind that came from nowhere. His face was hard, covering a bone-deep exhaustion.

"I've had enough." Dean said. "I did your stupid maze, now give me Sam and let us out of here."

"Be careful, Dean." Gabriel's voice was low and quiet, like the growl of animal before it snaps. "I've been generous to you, I've been kind, but I don't like you acting like your _brother _is just a thing you can win and take home with you. I've seen enough of that kind of attitude for a hundred lifetimes. And I can be cruel."

"Hold up. Generous? Are you kidding me? What about this stupid made-up errand has been generous?"

Gabriel's volume rose abruptly. "Everything, the whole thing, what did you think that I just fart and pocket universes come out of my ass? You wished for someone to take Sam away, so I took him away. You wanted to show your worth, to feel like yourself after everything fell down around your ears and I gave you that, I gave you a dragon you could slay. I even altered time just so you could do it. Just think, Dean. What if it hadn't been _me_ that granted your wish? Do you think any of the other possibilities would have been half as _generous_? I am exhausted from taking care of you."

"So give me Sam and we'll leave you alone." Dean said.

"And let you get him killed? Why don't you just go home and leave Sam with me? You know he'll just get killed with you. That's what happens to people who love you, Dean. They die. They die for you." His voice started to waver. "I won't let that happen to Sam."

Dean blinked, taken aback by the display of emotion, paused, and then stepped forward, steadfast. "I won't back down. I got nothing against you, okay, and it sounds like… I don't know, like you really care about Sammy or something, I don't know where this is all coming from but I'm not turning around now."

"Stop." Gabriel said. "Just stop. I can give you both what you want. You can stay together – Don't you want a special, safe place, just for the two of you? As many cheeseburgers and Christmases as you could want, no monsters, just a normal family? Sounds good, right?"

"You're not the first thing to make me that offer." Dean said. "I wasn't interested then and I'm not now. I'm not going into some matrix just to be safe and neither is Sammy. Safe isn't us. I wish it was sometimes, but it's not and it probably never will be. If I'm not helping people, I'm not me, and safe isn't part of that equation."

Gabriel rose to a shout. "Do you know what you're giving up!? People, all kinds of people, even hunters, most of them would _kill_ for what I'm offering you."

"Well offer it to them, then." Dean said eyes flat.

"What about Cas, what about him, what happens when he loses you because of some stupid mistake you'll make someday on a case?"

Dean presses onward, sending Gabriel stepping uneasily backward. "He knows I'm human, he knows I'm not gonna live forever, don't bring him into this. You may be an archangel and a trickster, you may be able to sell ice to eskimos, but let me give you the bottom line: You have no power over me."

Somewhere in the darkness, a bell tolled, once, twice, again and again.

Pain, regret, and loss all fought for dominance on Gabriel's face. His outstretched hand fell, he almost seemed to shrink. The wind kicked up and his cloaks fluttered around him, obscuring his face, and then his body, and then Dean was sure – he _was_ shrinking. The whiteness of his fabrics became his feathers, and the owl was flying away.

The bell went on, ten, eleven, twelve.

The world twisted around Dean.

Thirteen.

It was over. They were going home.


	14. Epilogue

Dean was sitting in the driver's seat of the Impala. In the low light, he could tell he was parked in the expansive garage beneath the Men of Letters bunker. He scrambled to flick on the roof light and found Sam peacefully asleep in the passenger seat.

"Hey." He nudged Sam gently with his fist. "Hey sleepyhead, wake up, we're home." A broad grin painted Dean's face as the last two words came out.

"Huh? Oh, weird, I don't remember falling asleep."

"Yeah, well, we were both pretty tired, I guess." Dean said.

"Wait, but weren't we at some roachy motel in the middle of nowhere?" Sam frowned. It was when he and Dean locked eyes that they both pieced together the sum of their time. "OK, weird." Sam said, hurrying out of the car with his duffel slung over one shoulder. He took advantage of his long legs to stay a pace ahead of Dean.

"You're telling me." Dean muttered. "You're welcome, by the way."

Sam turned back. "For what?"

"For saving your ass."

"Who said I needed saving?"

"I do. Duh."

Sam sighed. "Yeah, ok." His head bounced in a little nod. He didn't need to challenge, Dean was just establishing normality. As he gained ground and he knew Dean couldn't see his face, he let a little smile creep across. "You gonna turn in?"

"Are you kidding, of course I am, I'm beat. You could probably use a little more rest yourself."

"No doubt." Sam confirmed before he closed his door behind him.

* * *

Dean crossed into his room and slipped off his shoes and left them where they stayed, askew by the door. When he turned, his body seized in a startled jump, calming his breath when he realized who it was standing against the far wall.

"Hello, Dean." Cas said, mouth turned up at the corners. "I'd like to ask you something. Please do not be alarmed."

Dean blinked several times in quick succession and swallowed stiffly.

Cas stepped closer, inches from his face. His eyes narrowed, searching the micro-expressions, the tiny, involuntary muscle twitches beneath the skin of Dean's brows and cheeks.

"Uh." Dean said. He licked his lips, and his gaze flicked against his will to Cas' mouth. Why did that always happen?

Cas tilted his head slightly. "Dean, do you want to kiss me?" Cas asked, the gravel of his voice coming out in much the same flatly curious tone as one would ask if you'd like a cup of tea, as long the kettle's on.

"I—What?" Dean stammered, almost instinctively evading the question. Cas was unmoving, seemingly unconcerned with Dean's discomfort. His eyes danced around the points of Cas' face. He suddenly felt like there was no air in the room.

"Initially I had planned to discuss these things with you at length, but I currently believe that you would not prefer that strategy." Cas elaborated.

"Ha." Dean said weakly. He blinked several more times, and glanced down, away. "Do you... think that's a good idea?" His voice didn't quite come out as strong as he would have hoped.

"Yes." Cas answered simply.

When Dean looked up, he had steeled himself. There was no more wavering, now, no point in ignoring, or procrastinating, or acting like he had more important things to think about. He did, probably, but it no longer mattered. And, he couldn't deny that he would absolutely prefer kissing to talking, and especially to having to think about what it meant.

So with all the hesitation of someone who was suddenly aware of how close he was, Dean brought his hand to Cas' upper arm and pulled him gently closer still.

It was strange, at first. Cas' lips were chapped and stiff. But Dean's heart thudded against his chest as if it wanted to get closer, and when Cas pressed back against him, a strange little noise escaped, and the whole strange mess started to fall into place. Dean surprised himself by wanting more. Dean had never had trouble with the idea that what is most right is not always the simplest or easiest, and yet he'd somehow failed to see it action in front of him for years. Like many right things, it was worth the learning curve.

There was something between them that didn't care in the least about the brush of stubble or the breadth of muscled shoulders beneath his hands and it made Dean feel as though he'd wasted his time not letting it through sooner.

* * *

Sam was relieved to still be tired, even exhausted. He fought to keep the little smile off his face as he tucked himself into the bed in his little room in the bunker, but it stayed determinedly stuck to his mouth, even as he drifted easily off into slumber.

It wasn't long before he smelled salt air. A hazy scene painted itself around him, powdery white sand and hard-leaning palms with washes of color bleeding into each other, drops of blue-green sea slipping into the pink sunset sky, the sun itself melting into the horizon of the shifting ocean.

Sam sat on the beach, watching the waves blur onto the sand and pull away again.

"Gabriel?" He asked the wind.

"Hey kiddo." Gabriel said softly.

Sam turned to see Gabriel walking down the beach to sit next to him. "Still dressed like part of the mummers parade, I see." Sam said.

"At first I was trying to make a point but I think I'm starting to like it. The tights are surprisingly comfortable."

"This place is beautiful." Sam's voice came out quiet.

"Sam."

Sam searched Gabriel's eyes, warm and golden. They reminded him of a rich, single-flowered honey he'd tasted once in a bustling farmer's market. Though he did not know why, pressed his fingers into Gabriel's.

"Sam, I want you to know I'm listening." Gabriel promised. "And I want what you said. Real life."

Sam let out a long breath, too slow to be a sigh.

Gabriel went on, "And I want you to know that now that I'm back, I don't want you to hesitate, should you need me..."

Sam realized the weight of it, of seeing him again, and hot tears blurred his vision. "I need you." Sam said. "I do. I needed you all that time and you were gone, and it never stopped."

Gabriel rose to his knees and wrapped his arms around Sam, holding him tight.

When Sam woke, he felt a strange weight on his chest. Gabriel's arm was tossed protectively across him. For the first time since the dreams had started, he no longer had to wonder alone.

* * *

He opened his eyes. It didn't help. The room was still dark.

"Hello?" It echoed across the walls in an all-too-familiar way. He had become intimately acquainted with that precise echo. Crowley tugged at his arms as a test, but as predicted, they were shackled, and didn't go too far. He grimaced, and then sighed as dramatically as he could manage.

"Bloody archangels." He said to no one.


End file.
